How quickly things change. The latest Sunday Independent/Millward Brown poll has declared Sinn Fein the most popular party in the country and this morning’s IP headline says Gerry Adams won’t rule out being next Taoiseach.
According to pundits, the years of austerity have ended the Civil War rivalries which allowed two right-wing parties to take turns to rule and we are now dividing into proper European left and right. I’m irked that they label Fianna Fail right-wing. In spite of its opportunism in recent decades, it still is, west of the Shannon, the party of the little man.
When I first came from NI to live in Donegal and found myself eligible to vote, I asked the elderly lady next door what was difference between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. She told me about the civil war, when the Irregulars (FF), not having the resources available to the government funded Freestate Army (FG), had to live off the land. Sometimes that meant stealing, or rather requisitioning, a pig from some well-to-do farmer who had plenty of pigs. They never requisitioned a poor man’s pig.
The strong farmers of Ireland have never forgiven Fianna Fail for the loss of their pig. Their children and grandchildren do not forgive. This is why they vote Fine Gael, the party that didn’t steal their pig.
The pig still has its uses in political analogy and neatly explains the collapse in the Fianna Fail vote. We all owned pigs during the boom years, but Troika austerity and regressive taxes, such as the water charge, requisition only the poor man’s pig.
Which brings me back to Sinn Fein’s electoral ambitions. Media attempts to do down the Anti-Water Charge protests have focussed on the, the people who unlawfully imprisoned the Tanaiste and insulted the President. For over a week now we’ve had daily headlines about arrests and questionings. Sinn Fein, although opposed to water charges, has stood astutely apart from the extreme fringe. Suddenly they’re looking like the party of left-wing moderation. With each passing day they look more and more viable as a party of government.
If only Fianna would brace itself now to eat humble pie, go back to its origins and commit to requisitioning the rich man’s pig instead of the poor man’s, they might look viable too, as minority coalition partners with Sinn Fein.
Impossible, pundits will say, forgetting that a DUP/Sinn Fein government was once impossible too.
As the fine details of welfare reform and budget cuts emerge in the North, opposition parties are rallying around what they perceive as SF having accepted austerity cuts. The big question is, what impact will this have on the southern electorate? No doubt they are watching very closely.
SF are fighting on an anti austerity (and Anti water charge) ticket in the South. Support for SF seems to be consistent around 20%+ but as we have seen previously in Dublin South West and Roscommon Leitrim South, opinion polls are not necessary accurate or to be relied upon. What happens in the North is pivotal to SF becoming a serious contender for government in the South in 2016. Brian Feeney a few years ago talked about SF’s consistent message in the South attracting support – this message needs to be consistent across the island – as things stand is that message consistent?
Gerry Adams is already looking to the big prize of senior partner in any potential government, admitting a refusal to accept a position as a junior force. In the North SF are adamant they have not accepted austerity measures – according to Martin McGuinness the “deal” in the North was the best they could get – will this be enough to tempt voters in the South to vote SF ? It’s all to play for …
I cannot agree that FF are the Party of the small folk. De Valera’s pastoral vision of the Urban and Rural Irish as sitting at the Hearth engrossed in the Rustic simplicity of what it means to be Irish did little to stem the exodus of our people from this then impoverished land. Ill feeling over the theft of pigs, poultry or any other produce acquisitioned during the civil war can have little bearing now on how people impoverished are staving off water charges which will deepen them into increasingly desperate economic difficulties. FF have been acolytes of the Milton Friedman School of economics of which Thatcher was a luminary in the fringe in Europe. To write them in as somehow a moderating influence politically is mistaken I’d suggest. “The radical fringe”, are moderate in reality it is merely that the centre ground has moved so far to the right that relatively they can appear extreme. If it is politically extreme to join with Greece and possibly soon Spain as well as say damn Austerity and the despair and impoverishment it is exacting on our people, then we should perhaps view those who would advocate such a progressive course as visionary and reasonable. If SF become too expediently establishment and fail to grasp this momentous opportunity to seize back control from Europe under the German version of Thatcher(Merkel), telling them and the other pillars of the Troika to renegotiate these economic sanctions, or even default, their fortunes will certainly begin to fall, and watching them north and south of our country we closely are.
“And then the animals looked to the pigs then back to the human, then back to the pigs, and they could not tell the difference”. Let us hope SF will do the right thing for our people. For now they continue to have mine and others qualified vote. May they stay the course, sweep the board and not lose sight of their greater vision in so doing.
A Street Cat named Sylvester aka Gerry Adams, TD was interrogated, oops, interviewed on RTE’s flogship wireless programme this morning: Moaning Ireland.
The topic was the rise and rise of Sinn Fein in the opinion polls as the centenary of the Rising appears on the horizon.
His interrogator,oops, interviewer was Cathal Mac Coille whose nom de guerre is: The Woodman. As in,The Woodman who knows how to Axe the Hard Ones.
What made this issue of Radio Romper Room, RTE style especially memorable were the intro and the wrap up.
Intro: ‘And next we’ll have Gerry Adams, and a murder in a Dublin suburb’. That the two items were in no way related was made about as clear as the Muddy Waters line about his mojo not working. A light bulb moment, as Pat Carey might say re.
Wrap up: ‘Mairia Cahill has just tweeted in to the programme…..(yadda, yadda, yadda)… What have you got to say to that, Mr. Adams?’
Hmmmm.
Now, this dramatic intervention in the dying moments begs a q. or two: as Cahill is derived from ‘O Cathail’ in the leprechaun (more short than fada,in fairness) which means ‘descended from Cathal’:
Are Tweety Bird Cahill and ‘Je suis Cathal’ in any way, perchance, related? And if so, how many degrees of separation divide them?
The first yadda, btw, was translated as: ‘I taut I taut I hoid a puddy tat on the wadio”.
Moaning I. is sky high on Dort orthodoxy
Protects the latte quo with so much moxy
Just tweet a pal
Called C for Cal
To land a foxy, free skelp on air by proxy.
Oh Perkie…You perfect one. Maybe Better Call Saul…?
I grew up in a family that would hear no criticism of FF. My late father spoke of a big bonfire being lit in his townland in 1932 to celebrate Dev’s coming to power.He and my uncles from both sides of my family waited almost all their lives for the FF cavalry to come over the hill and liberate us from the British yoke.However sometime in the 80s they finally came to realise that FF were no better than”the rest of that shower down there”.I remember my uncle saying “they’re all staters now” and my father being in total agreement.Their craven attitude during the hunger strikes and their extradition of prisoners to Thatchers Britain were the last straw as far as they were concerned.Anybody with any doubts about the nature of FF need only look at their scurrilous anti SF tactics during the last election or witness the antics of Mehole Martin as he jumps on the Maria Cahill and similar bandwagons.There is only one man of any decency among their parliamentary party and that is Eamon O’Cuiv.The older generation that gave me a life long interest in politics would be cheering on Gerry Adams if they were alive today and hoping that he would give “that shower down there” their comeuppance.
The NI devotees I knew long ago, of Devalera and Fianna Fail, veterans of the War of Independence and internment in the Argenta, were all dead by 1970 so did not see the betrayals of the 1970s and onward. They waited, as you so eloquently say, believing that one day the Fianna Fail cavalry would come over the hill and set us free.
I agree entirely Micheal C. FF are a political alignment we once looked towards as advocates of ours in the north. Collins did not abandon the six counties though the besieged communities under Stormont generally felt so. The greater picture is Irish emasculation of sovereignty under the IMF et al. Eion o Brion and those to the left of the Party in SF are the only ones now making sense. It may well be that anyone left of Attilla the Hun are accepted as politicos to be negotiated with. For those in Ireland north or south of the country wishing to balance the books and feed their families, FF, FG, Lab et al are mistily aloof and removed from the vulnerable. Let us make sure, or urge persuasively those in SF and the wider Republican constituency that the Hunger Strikers from Mc Sweeney to Sands and Hughes et al did not die for one set of gombeens to superceed another. Their vision was greater. Dev survived because of his passport. Too many of our people are seeking theirs to get out of our country. This land is all of our gael, planter and immigrant. No blacks, no dogs, no Irish?….Time we took back our sovereignty and reminded everyone that Irish means welcome in every language. A welcome not afforded our people in their exodus, but one we either endorse or forfeit our integrity as people by failing to do so.