‘Micheal Martin and Eoghen Harris: members of the same choir?’ by Joe McVeigh

 

I have found the FF leader Micheal Martin’s response to the appeal from SF leader, Gerry Adams TD puzzling. Gerry Adams TD suggested to the leaders of the political parties in south who profess to want to see a reunified Ireland to come together to discuss a way forward. Micheal Martin denounced Gerry’s appeal in the same kind of language trotted out regularly by Eogan Harris in a Sunday paper. Makes me wonder is Eoghan writing the FF policy on the north for Micheal Martin these days? These two would appear to have nothing in common –except their dislike of Sinn Fein. That is what unites them and makes it possible that Harris is prompting Martin to make his anti SF statements on a regular basis.

 

Southern politics is a funny business. We now have FF propping up a minority FG government.  Both were sworn enemies during the Haughey-Reynolds years. Now they are united in their opposition to SF and other left sounding elected representatives in the Dail. They show absolutely no respect for anyone on the left who speaks on behalf of the poor, the homeless the unemployed. Most of them profess to be Catholics and therefore adherents of the Gospel of Jesus the radical preacher and teacher who introduced some radical ideas about siding with the poor into the political arena. Many of these right wing politicians went to Catholic colleges only to come out of them, enter business and politics and become even more right wing in their political and economic views.

 

They receive plenty of air–time on RTE and they have their own so called independent newspaper to promote their version of the gospel. Compared to the grilling that Gerry Adams or any Sinn Fein member gets on RTE these right wingers who are responsible for bankrupting the country and creating homelessness and a two tier society get off very lightly. When it comes to Brexit I am not hopeful that any of these right wing politicians will take a strong stand against the British and the return of the border or the weakening of the Good Friday Agreement. Their commitment to the Good Friday Agreement has been less that whole-hearted over many years.

 

I sometimes wonder how far they will go to obstruct the advance of SF and the left in Ireland? And yet if we are going to create a new Ireland and new politics they need to change their attitude and engage in proper debate about the future of this island and the way to achieve reunification. If they continue to make all these excuses about annoying the unionists then we can only conclude they have no policies and no worthwhile ideas. That’s a sad state of affairs.

 

23 Responses to ‘Micheal Martin and Eoghen Harris: members of the same choir?’ by Joe McVeigh

  1. Bridget Cairns July 28, 2017 at 1:29 pm #

    “dislike of Sinn Fein” ,I would say it is more like obsessional hatred”

  2. bullykiller July 28, 2017 at 1:34 pm #

    Well said Joe. If they think that they can marginalize Sinn Fein in the South, especially with troubled times coming over the Border situation, then they are scoring an own goal. I predict that Sinn Fein will rise to about 30% in voting intentions in the South in the event of a hard border. Many Fianna Fail supporters will switch to Sinn Fein if Martin is seen to be weak with regressive forces, who desire a hard border and a weakening of the GFA. Paisley Jnr was giving us a colonial choice this morning of a hard border or leaving the EU, in response to Varadkar taking a surprisingly strong position on retaining an open border. I know a few Fianna Fail supporters who have said- in the event of a hard border, and Fianna fail failing to stand up to the British Unionists- that they will switch to Sinn Fein.

    Interesting times ahead!

  3. Sherdy July 28, 2017 at 3:43 pm #

    You suggest that, in the creation of a new Ireland, Martin and Harris would have to change their attitudes.
    I suggest that you are expecting invertebrates to show some backbone.
    Ireland needs politicians with principles – something she is totally lacking in today’s Dail!

  4. Eddie Brady July 28, 2017 at 5:06 pm #

    Very well put, their hatred of republicans is pathological. Fianna Fail and Mehole Martin are as irrelevant as Harris to the majority of Irish people.
    If FF are being advised by Harris their in evrn deeper dudu than we believe. Sinn Fein really are upsetting the gombeens.

    • huge Celt. July 28, 2017 at 6:11 pm #

      If you were at the recent Sinn Fein National Convention in Belfast you would know that Mehole, and Leo, are the people that Gerry is relying on to deliver a united Ireland.
      Doesn’t look like much of a strategy, does it?

  5. michael c July 28, 2017 at 8:25 pm #

    HC ,maybe you’d enlighten us all as to who or what you support and how they will lead us all to the promised land.

    • huge Celt. July 28, 2017 at 9:29 pm #

      My promised land doesn’t have green milk, and greener honey.
      I’m one of those pesky Lefties that believes that this country can only be united on the basis of Socialist, class -based politics.
      In that context, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail aren’t our allies, they’re our enemies.

  6. michael c July 28, 2017 at 10:15 pm #

    Aye but who or what group do you support?

    • huge Celt. July 28, 2017 at 11:24 pm #

      I like a bit of AC/DC to blow away the cobwebs, but I’m also partial to The Smyths as well.

      • moser July 28, 2017 at 11:59 pm #

        There is a light and it never goes out…

        • huge Celt. July 29, 2017 at 8:23 am #

          Powered by the RHI scheme?

          • moser July 29, 2017 at 10:39 pm #

            He he

    • Emmet July 28, 2017 at 11:36 pm #

      He is PBP if it is Kevin Connolly.

      • huge Celt. July 29, 2017 at 12:52 am #

        I am the last of the International Playboys….

        • Emmet July 29, 2017 at 1:18 am #

          Confirmed- he also talked about ‘playboy’. Hello Kevin.

          • huge Celt. July 29, 2017 at 7:34 am #

            Please Emmett, don’t ever join the Nutting Squad – you would have Ireland looking like a combination of a Quentin Tarantino movie, and the Marie Celeste.

            Ps. Don’t mention the “Ballymurphy N*ggers” – otherwise the Drama tends to turn into a week-long Comedy.

            “Carry On Up The ‘Murph”, perhaps?

            Or “An Irishman Went Up a Hill, and came down an Englishman” has a certain air of authenticity to it, don’t you think?

            Or “Keep digging Gerry – Australia can’t be too far now”.

  7. Emmet July 28, 2017 at 11:46 pm #

    The ‘establishment’ parties in the south do not hate Sinn Fein per se, they simply fear them I think. Their career is competitive and cut throat, so when a new threat turns up in is in their best interest to try to eliminate the threat. I don’t think they are ideologically driven at all, the currency they work with is votes (if you believe the tripe that their is no corruption).

    The RTE is part of the same establishment.

    • huge Celt. July 29, 2017 at 8:20 am #

      Bridget on this thread tells us that not only do the Establishment parties in the South HATE Sinn Fein, but she likens it to a mental illness. She calls it “obsessional”.

      You, on the other hand, claim they don’t hate Sinn Fein, they FEAR Sinn Fein.

      Comrade Gerry, on the third hand, is now basing his entire United Ireland project on a pan-nationalist front involving these Establishment parties – people that have in the very recent past told you in no uncertain terms that nationalists deserved all they got from Unionist and Loyalist paramilitary rage for daring to ask for more.
      These Establishment parties refer to Irish people like us as “fucking dregs”, and think we can’t get up in the mornings.

      At what point does it become obvious to The Enlightened One that southern capitalism, and it’s leaders, isn’t – and hasnt been for 100 years – remotely interested in taking over a bankrupt, belligerent sectarian statelet with at least a million people in it that don’t want to he any part of Gerrys Grand Escape Plan?

      And when will the penny drop with Sinn Fein that if they cant actually deliver something as basic, as non-threatening, as culturally neutral as an Irish Language Act without it being toxified into a sectarian football; then their chances of uniting this country economically, politically, socially and culturally to the benefit of anyone are non-existent.

      Maybe the problem isn’t so much the product, as the sales-people and their past and present selling techniques?

  8. Brian Patterson July 29, 2017 at 4:24 pm #

    A moot point is why SF is gagging to get into bed with a corrupt reactionary cabal whose leader appears wedded to a totally British oriented view, cannot hide his loathing for SF, and who attended a commemoration in honour of the purate privateer who slaughtered 600 Irish men women and children on Rathlin Island.

  9. Brian Patterson July 29, 2017 at 4:41 pm #

    In 1944 a German unit of the Waffen SS, under the command of Sturmbannfuehrer Adolf Diekmen murdered 647 men women and children in the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the Haute-Vienne region. The victims were shot or burned alive.

  10. Brian Patterson July 29, 2017 at 4:53 pm #

    The massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane caused outrage,even in German ranks,notably Field-Marshall Rommel who demanded an inquiry. There is no record of any English mulitary commandee or politician expressing outrage or demanding an inquiry. The numbers killed in Rathlin were similar to those slaughtered in Oradour-sur-Glane. Time passes, memories fade and former adversaries become reconciled. But how many centuries will pass before any French politician of note attends a an event commemorating Sturmbannfuehrer Adolf

  11. Brian Patterson July 29, 2017 at 4:54 pm #

    Diekmann and the Waffen SS?

  12. Brian Patterson July 29, 2017 at 4:56 pm #

    Sorry for inadvertently submitting the foregoing comment in three pieces.