Martin, Gerry and the art of trampolining

Am I going mad? If you’d asked me six months ago  if I thought the Belfast Telegraph was a stout supporter of republicanism, I’d have replied with some confidence “Are you kidding?” Let’s say it hasn’t been unknown for the occasional columnist at the Bel Tel to write the odd column that hasn’t been totally twinkling with admiration for Sinn Fein.  But a short while back I came on a column headed “Exclusive: Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness writes for the Belfast Telegraph”. So I read through it to see if it’s maybe a send-up. Nope. It’s the real thing. Martin McGuinnness discussing sober political issues, arguing that far from having abandoned the most vulnerable in our society and implemented welfare cuts in the Stormont House Agreement, Sinn Fein has found ways – and money- which will protect them. So I rub my eyes for a bit and then it dawns on me: unionists quite like Martin McGuinness. Yes, I know. Not the reaction you’d expect to a former IRA commander. But somehow there are unionists out there who find it hard to hate him. Maybe it’s got something to do with his  friendliness. Maybe it’s got to do with the air of authority-without-pompousness he has. Or maybe because there is no denying that McGuinness is a man who doesn’t hesitate to take political risks. Like running for the Irish presidency. Or  meeting the head of state of the neighbouring island, not once but two or three times. Or standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the First Minister and the Chief Constable to condemn the violent republican dissidents who killed young Ronan Kerr. They’d never admit it, of course, but I’ll bet there are some unionists who silently wish they had a leader like that. 

But of course there had to be a catch. When I’d finished reading the McGuinness article online  I glanced across to the right of the screen. There was a picture of Gerry Adams with a tag saying “What Gerry Adams likes to do naked in his garden”.  Was this the negative counterweight to the positive McGuinness piece? Besides, it’s hard to turn away from a heading like that so I clicked the link.

It was a report on an interview Gerry had done with Newstalk in the south. In  it he spoke of how he has a trampoline and how he likes to bounce on it. Naked. “Sometimes the dog joins in” Gerry confided. At this stage I’m checking the date but no, it’s still not April. Gerry goes on to talk about how he’s always had a dog and how pleasant it is to go hill-walking with the dog. And he adds that they – he and the dog – both love trampolining. “In fact I caught the dog doing it by himself once”.

There are people who say that this kind of talk shows that Gerry, unlike Martin, has lost the plot. Combined with his tweets about having a bath with a rubber duck, it’s evidence that it’s time he was led gently off-stage. Mmm. Well it’s talk you’d not get from any other Irish political leader, that’s for sure. But whatever else some people may call Gerry, few would call him a fool. My own conclusion is that he’s saying these things and watching the reaction of his listeners as their eyeballs whirl in their heads and they twitch with confusion.

And I do believe it links with the most interesting comment I’ve ever read about Gerry Adams. It was from someone who knew him from the early days. “When the rest of us were running to do a bit of stone-throwing at the police or the army, Gerry always asked ‘What’ll this gain us?’ ”  My guess is that the Sinn Fein president knows this rubber-duck-trampolining-dog-in-the-buff talk makes it hard for the media to present him as the incarnation of evil, which quite a few of them would dearly like to do. To paraphrase the old Julie Felix song ‘Turn, Turn, Turn”, there is a time for everything under heaven. A time to talk of rubber ducks and trampolining in the nude, and a time for working to make Sinn Fein the south’s biggest party after the next election. I’d be fairly confident Gerry Adams knows the difference.