Enda Kenny appears to be an adept multi-tasker. He has told journalists that though he has the date of the general election in his head, he’s not going to tell them now, but will do it “in a very public fashion” in his own time. I’m taking that to mean he’ll drop the word on one of those thoughtful chat shows on RTÉ – say the Late Late Show – as distinct from running naked down Grafton Street shouting the date and frightening the horses.
At the same time, he’s shown he can cope with the fact that Arlene Foster won’t be attending any Easter 1916 commemorations. Enda says she has “a deep, deep view” about not participating. I think that means she has strongly-held views but it could mean something different. That Enda – he’s a deep one.
But as well as holding the election date in his head and appreciating Arlene’s deep, deep views, Enda is juggling in his brain with an invitation, which he’s taken out (no, not his brain, Virginia, an invitation ) and offered to our new First Minister: “It should be possible to put together an opportunity to allow the First Minister to speak about her views on 1916, which I’m quite sure we can arrange.”
That’s impressive. The hand held out to those who have deep, deep views about the Easter Rising that are different from your own. Not just a hand, but a chance to articulate those views. Presumably in a public way. Excellent. We must remain open to the reality that not everybody sees Easter 1916 as we do.
I’m reluctant to suggest yet another idea to be levered into Enda’s already-stuffed-with-thoughts head, but it does present a golden opportunity which maybe An Taoiseach hasn’t considered. Who in Leinster House , would you say, holds deep, deep views about the Easter Rising that are markedly different from those of Enda? Why, well done, Virginia! The very man – Gerry Adams. In the interests of inclusivity and national solidarity, wouldn’t it be fitting that Mr Adams and Mr Kenny sat down together and, in a very public way, presented their take on the events of one hundred years ago?
I realise this is asking a lot from a Fine Gael leader with a lot on his mind – as well as the things I’ve already listed, there’s water charges, hospitals bunged with trolleys, homelessness, eviction, the Irish Cancer Society closing its Financial Support programme to help cancer patients who face financial hardship. And did I mention that the Irish people carry the second largest debt burden per capita in the world with a debt of $60,000 per person?
I know – my suggestion intrudes on an already packed Enda schedule, made worse by all those places suffering from flooding that An Taoiseach has been visiting. But in this centenary year, it would be instructive for all Irish people if they could hear the comparative take on the Easter Rising by the leader of Fine Gael and the leader of Sinn Féin. You’re quite right, Virginia. It should be possible to put together an opportunity. Especially if Arlene says “Pass”.
I could think of nothing worse than listening to Adams and Kenny talking about 1916 with each one trying to out-Irish the other . All they will do is use it to get votes.
That’s politics for you Joe. Its all about the almighty Vote.
……….. and still they vote for him!
Great story.jude.
Agreed.Jim.But.You.Left.Out.A.Full.Stop.Sloppy.Punctuation. Jim.
I.Will.do.better.next.time.jude.
Good.man.Jim.
Yeah , It would be enlightening for the ordinary populace in the 26 ,constantly fed regurgitated verbal diatribe from their controlling media , to hear Arlenes (DUP’s) enlightened views of 1916 from the myopic flat earth perspective. She would certainly feel at home in Donnybrook ,that bastion of revisionism and free speech for the chosen few !….but I’m thinking ,if she did avail of that exceedingly generous offer ,she is “cute hoorish” enough to appear all sweetness and light whilst revelling in a golden opportunity to besmirch and tarnish Sinn Féin with the assured approval of the “Blueshirts”….Kenny is not as stupid as he looks….any opportunity…..but there’s the straw and camels etc etc
Prophet Before People
Orwell and Behan, eat your hearts out, Mr Shane Ross is the man for the deep thoughts. At a press conference on 12.1.15, he announced,
“We are totally and utterly different from any other body or entity in Irish politics.”
The Independent Alliance stood united but divided on policies. Lofty statements were made about the importance of collective decision making by the would be minister as he proceeded with deep ecumenical matters.
Mr Ross told us, he has deep, personal views about Sinn Féin, which he thought were shared by all of his colleagues. According to Mr Ross, Sinn Féin needs to undergo a “Pauline conversion to democracy” before the Independent Alliance could support the party in government and then, shock, horror, there was dissent in the ranks. Diarmuid O’Flynn voiced his reservations,
“I wouldn’t need that much convincing on that, and I suppose this is where the divisions would come in.”
The comments would suggest that Mr Ross may think he is on the right track but Mr O’Flynn thinks Mr Ross is on the wrong train.
Truly, Esteemed Blogmeister, are the talents of Enda the Ennui endless to the point of being, like the tomorrow of Kris Kristofferson, out of sight.
Not only is the PM a deep, deep thinker in the premier 20 thousand leagues under the c for category, but in this Olympic Year be it noted that he also ‘higher and longer’ than any of his colleague in The Leinster House of Commons. The higher comes from his scaling of Kilimanjaro, under the impression it was an Irish mountain with an oratory on top, not unlike, say, Cruach Phadraig/ Croghpatrick.
While one hesitates to use the Latin version of the Olympic motto, being a profoundly deep non-PC RC tack to take, nonetheless as there is no rule without an exception perhaps it is allowable in the interests of reconciliation to use the Latin word for long: prolix.
This native of the hamlet of Derrywash in County Mayo, go bhfoire Dia orainn / God help us, having been first selected at the tender age of 24 summers, in the most intellectual manner possible in the political sphere, i.e., to fill the shoes of his late father , he is now the Father of the House, the longest serving MP on the benches, the ultimate prolix.
Understandable that he is now much given, having reached the venerable age of 64, despite being the ancient guy with the Boy Band looks, aka the Dorian Gray Eminence, to whimsically signing his postcards, with thumb in cheek: ‘Yours sincerely, Wasting Away’.
And if he is searching for a platform from which his fellow deep, deep thinking Taoiseach of Norneverland, Arlene Alannah may elucidate her weighty, cholesterol-rich opinions he could do little better than opt for the sister paper of record of the Belfast Telegraph, i.e., The Unionist Times.
Sibling rivalries are not unknown in the newspaper world: and in this Coulter-themed year of ‘Celebrations !’ (a tune which bears an almost uncanny echo of Milord, albeit in a different pitch and tempo) the BT and TUT are handbagging each other like billy-o to see which can put the reboot the deeper into the whole grain bread of the dead of Easter 16.
Specifically, the critically acclaimed ‘Rite and Reason’ column aka The Monday Club Orange, whose editor is the disinterested Patsy McGarry, Bachelor of Arts. The latest intellectually-charged contribution to this go-to (gulp) pulpit for the politically original, brave and incurably craven is yet another in a short, select list of Seamuses-who-are-not-as-famous-as-they-would- like-to-be.
That would be Fr. Seamus Murphy, SJ.. Who is courageously described by the reconciliatory Unionist Times as an ‘Irish priest who teaches philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago’.
As no doubt many of your readers, EB, will already have already have caught this deeply challenging, brain-enhancing and ruminative piece, nonetheless , not unlike Yoaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, the head honcho of a Mexican drug cartel, some things are indubitably worth catching twice.
With your forbearance, a few insult-avoiding sultanas from this thoughtfully baked angel food cake will suffice.
-The Rising was a shriek of protest at the prospect of constitutional nationalists compromising with unionists.
(To think of the lip-biting the loyalists in T.U.T. must have endured before giving this the nod ! Respect).
-To celebrate the Rising is to celebrate anti-democratic elitism.
(From a Jesuit whose non-elitist schools in Ireland cater not for the, erm, Apostolate of the Rich, but for the non-o’fiaich / fee-paying Paddy Stinks and Mickey Mudds this was a deep, deep insight born of hard-scrabble experience. Respect.)
-If the Government wants to be ‘inclusive’, the Garden of Remembrance should also commemorate those who, like O’Connell, worked for Irish Freedom, but did not shoot anybody.
(Erm, point of information, through the chair, led thoil, a chathaoirligh.
In January 1815, a duel was held in the OK Corral of Co. Kildare not far from the K-Club of today, the scene of many contemporary shoots out. The low-handicap Captain D’Esterre was plugged by a bullet which passed through his groin and lodged in his lower spine. Groaning, he was to expire two days later.
His conqueror was none other than the gifted amateur Dead-eye Dan. Although there was a light snow fall at the time of the duel, it somehow managed to infiltrate the surtout of Dead-eye Dan and lodge in his whiter than white soul.
But, of course, one minor error in historical fact should not be allowed to detract from what is the very model of a major exercise in deep, deep thinking. Respect).
Finally: with respect to Loyalist, oops, Loyola. The University in Chicago on the staff of which can be found the peace-loving, stimulating and philosophical SJ called Seamas-who-wishes-he-were-more-famous, is called after/ named for.
Could this be the same Loyola who, as just a lad of seventeen summers was also much given to dueling. After joining the army of Castille at that age, he was known to ‘strut around with his cape slinging open to reveal his tight-fitting hose and boots, a cast steel sword and a dagger at his waist’.
(Imagine, and him not even a confirmed Bachelor of Arts at this time ! Respect.)
‘On one occasion he encountered a Moor who denied the divinity of Jesus, and so challenged him to a duel to the death. And duly ran him through, the Moor suffering the same uncomfortable fate as Abdul Abulbul Amir many years later. Loyola was to indulge in many a deadly duel in the years to come.
Alah akbar ! Could this be the (gasp) same Loyola?.
Memo to moi; must contact the ever peaceful and increasingly famous Seamas, SJ.
Ground control to Uncle Tom.
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I had a discussion with a few Unionists about Arlene saying no to commemorating the Easter Rising. Their general argument was her father was shot by republicans (the PIRA, not the men/women of 1916) and a bomb was placed under a school bus which she used (again by the PIRA, not the men/women of 1916) which was trying to kill the driver of the bus who, I believe, was a part time UDR man. Therefore, they say, Arlene should be entitled to refuse to commemorate it.
In reply to their argument, I made the case that, by using their logic, then nationalists should have the right not to commemorate Remembrance day every November (which they do have a right to refuse) due to the actions of the British Army, RUC and UDR and the systematic collusion and murder they were involved in. Of course my dear Unionist friends didn’t like this. I said Martin McGuinness, Mitchell McLaughlin, etc choose to put aside their difficulties and jointly commemorate Remembrance Day in the interests of moving forward but Unionists, as usual, are refusing to reciprocate. Nationalist majority councils could use Unionism’s logic to reject any motion to respect remembrance day and say the reason was due to the British Army’s actions in the past and sensitivities must be respected. But nationalists choose not to, in the interests of progress, but patience is running out due to Unionism’s hypocrisy.
Arlene Foster is the First Minister here. Even though the Deputy First Minister has exactly the same powers as the First Minister, her role is still symbolic and to be in that role she swears an Oath of Office to represent ALL communities here and respect them. This she is bluntly refusing to do, therefore she’s violating the Office of First Minister.
We are hearing more and more from Unionists about wanting an Opposition at Stormont, aka “majority rule”. They are deluding themselves, majority rule will never come back here because Unionism, as shown by Arlene before she even set foot into Stormont as First Minister, cant be trusted to represent everyone and it doesn’t take Einstein to work out the Catholic community don’t trust them and never will.