That Daithígate affair: what is it all about? Ask a politician from any other party than Sinn Féin and they’ll tell you with a worried look that it’s a matter of having our institutions working effectively, about avoid bias in committee hearings, about ensuring that the chair of Stormont committees are neutral and about making sure the truth sees the light of day.
All commendable concerns but I’m afraid I don’t believe any of them. I remember in the early days of the Troubles, talking to an old man who had been involved in the previous Troubles. His solution? Take about a dozen leading unionists and shoot them. Without their leaders, he figured, unionism would be rudderless and ineffective.
What’s going on over Daithígate mercifully doesn’t involve the taking of human life, but in essence it involves the taking of political life. Remember Irisgate? In the end, that involved taking the political life of Iris Robinson and very nearly taking the political life of her husband Peter. When Peter appeared with that straight-to-camera speech, his voice husky with emotion, his shelf behind him decorated with a card to”The Best Dad In The World” , he was fighting/pleading for his political life. And he saved it.
Politicians from different political parties have always had a hunger for heads on plates. If you remember back to the Garvaghy Road and the Marching Orangemen dispute, the Orange Order refused to talk to the residents as long as Breandán Mac Cionnaith was their spokesman. Not because they found difficulty pronouncing his name but because they wanted to take his political/leadership life. In Britain at present, Labour Party MPs are working day and night to take the political life of Jeremy Corbyn, thus they hope killing off his dangerous socialist ideas.
So let’s get real. Mike Nesbitt and other unionist politicians are not concerned about transparency or the purification of committee procedure or whether (or not) one of their own was sticking his snout in some gilded trough and sucking up millions of pounds. The concern of unionist politicians is to bring down as big a Sinn Féin name as possible. They’ve already managed to take out Daithí McKay. Some of them would dearly love to do the same with Martin McGuinness, but there are others who see McGuinness as a flinty protection against growing dissident republican activity. So they’re focusing their attention on Máirtín Ó Muilleoir. He’s clearly a new and formidable kind of Shinner leader – if they could kill him off, it’d surely weaken Sinn Féin.
And before anyone says it: yes, if the shoe were on the other foot, I expect Sinn Féin and the SDLP would be just as avid in head-hunting. Remember Martin McGuinness erasing presidential front-runner Sean Gallagher? Or Colum Eastwood’s merciless evisceration of Alasdair McDonnell? Truly, politics is a blood sport that combines business and the personal.
They’ve already managed to take out Daithí McKay.
Daithí McKay took himself out.
A poor attempt to deflect blame onto Unionists.
Wasnt Máirtín Ó Muilleoir Judes old paymaster who inflicted Judes columns on us…?
Joking aside the crux of what Jude is saying is correct lets be honest unionists are loving the fact that SF are trying to pull the same tricks the very same ones that SF said they would never do.
In many way SF are maturing into a proper political party which is a good thing for politics in Northern Ireland however that does leave them liable to attack from the other parties here.
Jude, there’s no doubting what Diathi McKay did was wrong and as such his political career has sadly come to an abrupt end. I dispute though that any Unionist party “managed to take out Daithi McKay” – I believe SF themselves took McKay out – they sacrificed one of their own as quickly as they possibly could, albeit making him publicity resign – did he have a choice?
Although McKay, I believe, wasn’t directly involved through his Twitter account in “coaching”, it’s a fact he directed Bryson with the sole intention of facilitating same. I still can’t fanthom how and why he and O’Hara trusted their liaison with Jamie Bryson, over a social media platform, in the hope Bryson (or whoever else) would never expose it. Bryson doesn’t exactly come with an abundance of credibility. I question what McKay and O’Hara had to personally gain from their liaison with Bryson – in sinking Robinson – how was that going to benefit them?
Gavin Robinson summed it up perfectly on Talkback today – it would be like a Judge approaching a chief prosecution witness, having back channel communications with them in order to secure a prosecution against a defendant – this isn’t acceptable – why should what McKay and O’Hara engaged in be acceptable?
“Politicians from different political parties always had a hunger for heads on plates” – of course they do. It’s the same in any political institution throughout the world – the difficulty is when you hand them it on a plate, you are feeding their hunger. I believe if it had have been any other poltiical party engaged in such corruption, SF would have been making the same calls as the other parties currently are.
In pretty well total agreement with you, CM, except that Daithí was taken out by SF because…Of course. Because if they hadn’t, the DUP etc would have been jumping all over them. Had that pressure for the head on plate not been there, Daithí would still be in position.
Was momentarily surprised this morning when I heard Naomi Long of Alliance joining the gutter politics by stating that Mairtin O’Muilleoir should stand aside while an investigation is carried out into Daithigate.
But then I remembered – she is a politician!
“If you remember back to the Garvaghy Road and the Marching Orangemen dispute, the Orange Order refused to talk to the residents as long as Breandán Mac Cionnaith was their spokesman”
How times have changed, now the Orange Order are begging the residents to talk, even going as far as to ask a Catholic priest to chair talks but the residents don’t want to know, why would they? they have achieved what they wanted. After all the sectarian murders of Catholics (Michael McGoldrick, Robert Hamill, Bernadette Martin, etc), including the UVF murder of the 3 Quinn children, due to the Orange Orders demands to march down a Catholic street, It would be an insult to all the victims memories if the Orange Order paraded now. That’s not to mention the numerous Catholic Chapels burnt/attacked by Unionists during the Drumcree Dispute and the attempt by Unionists to literally besiege Gravaghy Road itself, the UVF threatening to kill any driver who brought in food.
Jamie Bryson is a strange little man, he just sprung out of no where to lead the Fleg protests. His politics is of the 1920’s Unionist variety, crude, sectarian and religiously driven. Why Daithi McKay would get involved with such a person puzzles me, I thought he would’ve had more sense. Jamie is no Unionist Heavyweight, he fought one election and got only 160 odd votes. He and many others during the Fleg protests assumed and openly boasted of how Alliance was going to be wiped out for voting with Sinn Fein in City Hall and how they (in the form of the “Protestant Coalition”) were going to take Alliance seats. As then SDLP MLA Conall McDevitt told Jamie and other Fleggers during the notorious Nolan Show episode: “Your going to get quite a shock at the polls”. Indeed they did. The Alliance vote didn’t collapse after the Fleg protests, it actually increased, even in strong Unionist areas like Castlereagh.
I don’t see Máirtín Ó Muilleoir resigning or being pushed out, though I know Unionism would love to see that. Losing Mairtin would be a greater loss than McKay to Sinn Fein but also to everyone in the North. Mairtin is a skilled and talented businessman, he is always in the USA and can bring investment and jobs to the North. Do you think the likes of Sammy Wilson could’ve did that as well as Mairtin could? Or any other Unionist politician? I doubt it. The Irish connection is important to Irish American Businessmen and politicians. Having politicians from notorious Pro British wannabe, anti-Irish political parties coming out and courting investment is hardly going to impress any Irish American. No one has forgotten David Trimbles speech when he first went to the USA…..
Not sure why your still running with this Jude ? The whole affair reeks of very poor political
judgement from those involved on the SF side. I hope Mairtin is a long way away from any
involvement. Disappointing when a person with such as decent political profile is viewed as
a threat by Unionists. Anyway, fingers crossed!
What corruption?Daithi was’nt involved in any corruption and I see that political pygmy Eastwood also used the word corruption in a pathetic attempt to make himself relevant.
Hard to believe, Esteemed Blogmeister, but one has an acquaintance who actually came late to Oscar W.. A hail fellow occasionally well met who was more into the bookies than the books in his not so pallid salad days.
And then one calm day he chanced upon The Wilde Thing. Once bitten he couldn’t be accused of being twice shy: the infection so rapidly spread he succumbed to addiction. So much so that, in next to no time, there was only one piece of the Wildean canon he had yet to have his flanks exposed to.
That was rectified when the Gate Theatre opted to stage a production of ‘Salome’ featuring the sultry Olwen Foure in the lead role.
It was with his usual keen anticipation that LaShawn (let’s call him that, for that was almost his name) looked forward to ticking the last box. Even if the same theatre contains only stalls. He would not listen when it was hinted to him that perhaps it might not be quite the Oscar which his inner Wilde Life Warden had in mind.
Now nobody actually suggested to LaShawn that ‘Salome’ might be akin to a musclebound decathlete whose forte was the shot put being compelled to bring up the rear in the 1500 metres segment as he plodded his way dutifully in a leaden legged way round the track. But that was the general idea.
Alas it was LaShawn who nearly had his head delivered on a plate that fateful night. It only took him fifteen minutes max to discover that ‘Salome’ was not exactly ‘The Importance of Being E’ and another five minutes min for his snores to ring around the auditorium of the Gate. At the interval, a furious Foxrock Phoebe almost bit the head off him.
And as LaShawn manfully admitted, even if it was some weeks later, ‘and with good reason too’.
This piquant but all too true anecdote came to mind on reading today’s blog, EB. And prompted one to look south to the mid-west once more, to Limerick, the home of the unofficial pogrom.
SALOME’S NOT ALONEY
D. McKay has spawned many a Salome
Whose m.outrage verged on the foamy
Up north wee Sammy
Seeks slices of salami
While Southie’s sought a mere lobotomy.
I see the SDLP have jumped on the Unionist bandwagon demanding Mairtin stand down.
They’ve stooped to a new low I think. (Pun intended). Is all this nonsense for real? They are demanding a guy resigns from his job when there is not a shred of evidence he did anything wrong. These politicians should be careful what they wish for because what goes around so often comes around.
Until there’s evidence produced that Martin had done something wrong then this conversation needs to end, now.
Antonio
Well Peter did step down when the Iris affair was being investigated so there is precedent.
Of course you may be thinking Peter had higher standards than Mairtin, but I would have to disagree.
I see the Irish news are still at it. Anything to do with Mairtin being the owner of a rival newspaper.?