No Sunday morning is ever complete without an extended browse through the (electronic) pages of my second-favourite Irish news organ, The Sindo. I always find something that encourages me to think further on a given topic; often (but not always) the pen of Eilis O’Hanlon or (more recently) Mairia Cahill will gently lead me towards more contemplative waters. Last Sunday, though, it was a front-page story of The Sindo which drilled to the core of my brain.
“Chief whip Doherty in shock offer to Sinn Féin” was the headline. The Doherty in question was not Pearse Doherty but Regina Doherty, the Chief Whip of the Fine Gael party, and the offer was not to kick Sinn Féin in its softer areas but to state that she’s open to working in coalition with Sinn Féin.
Regina not the first Fine Gael member to make such a proposal – chief Fine Gael strategist Frank Flannery made a similar remark some time ago and was instantly demoted by Enda Kenny. But Regina is an elected official and one who traditionally has been more than willing to bash any passing Shinner, most notably when she told Gerry Adams a while back that he himself was to blame for all the attacks on him and his family by loyalists. But now she’s changed, it seems. She’s fallen off her horse on the way to Damascus. “There are some incredible people in Sinn Fein, incredibly smart, articulate, thoughtful and could I work with them? Of course I could, yeah.”
Let’s skip over the implicit suggestion that Ms Doherty herself is incredibly smart, articulate and thoughtful and consider why, up to now, Ms Doherty and the serried ranks of Fine Gael have been opposed to entering coalition with Sinn Féin. Easy: because Sinn Féin have a violent background, or were linked to violent people. The fact that the violence in question stopped around twenty years ago appears not to be the issue: the violent background was there and so Fine Gael couldn’t with a clear conscience embrace such people.
A more interesting question than asking Ms Doherty why she has changed her mind might be why she needed to change her mind. Because of the Shinners’ violent background? But Ms Doherty is a member of Fine Gael. That party has many interesting historical periods in its background. In the 1930s, the term ‘Blueshirts’ was created to describe the pro-Treatyites who were headed by one Eoin O’Duffy. Those in charge of the Blueshirts, including O’Duffy, made no secret of their admiration for European fascism and opposed democracy. Fine Gael was founded in 1933 and were, how shall I put it, inextricably linked with the Blueshirts. In fact some unkind people continue to call them that to this day.
None of this Blueshirt background appears to bother Enda Kenny, Frank Flannery or Regina Doherty.
Or if we probed back a little further in the history of the pro-Treaty forces from which Fine Gael sprang, we’d arrive at the night of the 6/7 March 1923. That’s when nine Republican prisoners were taken by Free State forces (the antecedents of Fine Gael) from the barracks in Tralee, Co Kerry to Ballyseedy cross-roads. There they were tied to a landmine which the Free State forces then detonated. As with the fascist background, none of this appears to ruffle a feather of Regina, Enda or Frank.
Which brings us to looking at this matter from the other side: is there any hope that Sinn Féin would some day enter into a coalition with Fine Gael? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say there are two hopes of that, and the more likely of the two is the late Bob Hope.
Liars tripping over each other. Just shows you how the media like to mix and spin….
The wicked media again!
So which is it
Are SF always open for talks or is there no basis for negotiation?
I don’t see what there is to talk about Giordano.
Colman
Well it was Gerry that said it not me, but sooner or later opposing parties have to talk, though we may be in for a protracted spell of indirect talks first.
In the end we are all stuck together like ‘huis clos’.
What do you see happening?
First thing to do is find out whether the spin is coming from the British or Irish government.
I don’t think Putin is sufficiently concerned about NI to bother hacking into our election – unfortunately!
n/korea style.read what we tell you.
Perhaps we could have them both prosecuted under the Trades Description Act’s, Independent has a specific meaning.
Two octogenarian contemporaries whose surnames both began with A, Esteemed Blogmeister, passed over within two days of each other this week, one whose death has been given extensive coverage in the Free Southern Stateen, the other’s, Z for zilch.
The first is Anthony Armstrong-Jones, photographer, whose strong arm held a variety of cameras during a long and focused career, and who has now, sadly, gone into the Dark Room from which no snapper ever emerges.
The other is Tommy Allsup about whose identity most Irish folk would evoke a negative. In a phrase, he was the guitarist who famously won the fateful toss to see who got to fly on the small plane with Buddy Holly. He won, and Richie ‘La Bamba’ Valens lost. February 3, 1959 has since been immortalised as The Day the Music Died.
Tommy A went on to have a long and focused career whose plectrum encompassed a spectrum of different musical styles, from rock ‘n roll and country, to rockabilly and western swing. He picked with distinction and with distinguished likes of Roy Orbison, Bob Wills and Willie Nelson.
In later life he opened a club in Dallas, Tx, called ‘Tommy’s Heads Up Saloon’.
Back in the day in the event of a coin toss, the tossers of The Free Southern Stateen were given a choice:
-Heads or harps.
In today’s edition of the Irish Independent with a crease in its pants, i.e,, The Unionist Times it was definitely a case of Heads we win, Harps you lose. In which the Sinners ganseys are handed once again to (yawn, stretch, trouser cough) the Shinners. With the captain’s armband on this occasion not being given for once to the innumerate Gerry Adams
(Fear na Féasoige who needs to count of his fingers, unlike say, such economic necromancers as Snarling Arlene or the Celtic Tigers, those geiger counters of the FSS)
The Free Southern Stateeen’s brainiest head and finest mind Fintan O’Toole has a piece which is hard on – another Shinner who shinned up the pole of grease.
-Martin McGuinness is hard to replace. +
Not for nothing is the thigh-slapping Toole widely regarded as the resident comedian of The Onanist, oops, Unionist Times, the true inheritor of the mantel of Myles na Gopaleen. In the long suit length of flannel which he wears (and wears us out with) today, two facets will suffice to show how little meas* Flannel O Brien has on his chosen subject.
This lack of meas is channeled into two accusations which he levels at Martin McGuinness who has clearly not at all been good for us. He is both:
-a mass killer and a mass goer.
Given the three card trick record of The Unionist Times it is a toss up which of these accusations is the more abominable with regard to the new No-man called Martin.
It is not that this can of laughing gas from the Toole was not flegged. One has only to gawk back to the coverage given by the Paper of Rex Accord to the New Year Messages by the Church Leaders south of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
So which church leader gets to stand in the gold medal posish on the podium?
-1916 events done with objectivity and respect.
This is the headline and was spoken by (gulp) Michael Jackson. That would be – one hastens to add, being nominally numerate – Michael Geoffrey St. Aubyn (!) Jackson, Archbishop of Dublin, that is, the Archbishop with the (gasp) Two Cathedrals and not the Archbishop with a, (gulp) half-Cathedral.
The silver and bronze positions on the podium are reserved from the Two Martins, Diarmuid and Eamon, neither of whom is a mass killer but both of whom are indubitably, mass goers.
This Michael Jackson runs the branch office (split level, Christchurch and St. Patrick’s) for the Commander in Chief of the British Armed Forces, as evidenced by the interior decor of the branch office:
-The fleg known colloquially as The Union Jill.
That would be Queen Elizarbeth, who is up to 90 this year, not unlike her fans in the Free Southern Stateen aka the Southern Yunes, and who is indubitably NOT one of the following:
-mass killer / mass goer.
Which may go some way towards explaining why certain prominent Bwanas in the Broadcasting Bubble in Baile Atha Cliath have opted to turn their backs on their Romanist backgrounds and enroll their awfullly privileged offspring in the terribly enlightened St. Patrick Cathedral Grammar School (no names, no pack drill).
Back to Jackson, Michael :
-In 2016, Ireland took back the Somme into our self-understanding and identity.
Eh?
-Honouring loss during the year exposed the bankruptcy of a memory that seeks to exclude.
-Hmmmm.
-And such a version of memory has had a long, tenacious history in Ireland.
Definitely not so the Michael Jackson who dangled his daughter by the ankles from his hotel window in Berlin. No, this is the Michael Jackson who dangles the oughter by the ankles from his pulpit in the unreturned Romanist cathedral in Dublin.
+is this the shortest honeymoon on record, dahlink ?
*Meas: for the eyes of mongolot megamedia maharajah aka the Neo-Know Nothing O Toole only: meas is the Leprechaun for respect and rhymes with ‘mass’.
Bhuel, sin é. After reading Perk’s teachtaireacht today, I feel there is nothing left on the internet for me to read today.
“The first is Anthony Armstrong-Jones, photographer, whose strong arm held a variety of cameras during a long and focused career, and who has now, sadly, gone into the Dark Room from which no snapper ever emerges”.
Gales of laughter after reading this one out at the coffee shop today! You are wicked Perk!
What does In Da know about the arrangement with their old enemy that he’s not letting on?
There must be something to make the bitch from Meath make any such offer.
woops, how did that happen?
Well Jude…it’s not as if they really know what’s going on anyway. How long have they had their eyes off the ball now? How many stupidly daft and wrong-footed stories have they produced between them? The media have been looking in the wrong direction all along and now that they are caught out at the very end of a an inpenetrable line of DuP scandals when they were busily hoking about in the wrong dustbins, they’ve still got the wrong villians all mixed up in their fantasy story.
The English and Irish comedians have closed their eyes and ears until now to some of the sweetest comedy of errors that might have launched many a career.Can you imagine this list of scandals being made into a real-written comedy television series like the “West Wing” or somesuch? There’s little that would have to be be made up at all.All the characters are there and all the scenarios already acted out.They are only now catching wind of this mad fairy-tale where the goose lays …not golden eggs, but gives you back £160 for every £100 of wood-pellets your buddies sell you!!!
PS…. as Adams always said….Martin has very much a mind of his own…for anyone who knows him well.
Is it only me see’s the difference between talks..”as in I’ll talk to you anytime full stop” and negotiating “as in I’m prepared to work out a last minute rescue agreement”
Jude
Is it my imagination or were these posts attached to a different piece originally?
It is hard enough to get a sensible conversation around here without that!