According to The Guardian’s Obituary of Jeremy Ashdown, the English politician nicknamed “Paddy”’ he once stated that if he had been brought up a Catholic in the North of Ireland, he would probably have joined the IRA. His fellow-parliamentarians, of all parties, have hailed him as a well-informed, intelligent and principled man.
I don’t know was he familiar with scenes of 19th century evictions depicted in The Illustrated London News or the story of Militia Ensign Boycott, who was no more a Captain than Bank-Manager Mainwaring, of Dad’s Army. Boycott engaged blackleg Ulster labourers from the Orange Order to harvest his master’s crops, when his Mayo tenants refused to do so.
Whether Ashdown knew our history or not, his instincts, inclinations, or principles seem pretty sound to me.
The charitable interpretation of Leo Varadkar’s behaviour and that of Micheal Martin in Dail Eireann when questioned by Pearse Doherty TD about a recent eviction is that neither of them knows anything of Ireland’s history. But while I wish peace to all men and women of good will, it would take the combined advocacy of the King’s Inns, Inner and Middle Temples, Lincoln’s and Gray’s Inn to make me doubt that both men are cynical, unprincipled cowards.
Fine Gael used boast of its piety on its election posters, and Oliver Flanagan could trumpet his own more loudly than “ the Pope’s Brass Band” (a group of swindlers of 19th century notoriety). Fortunately the party didn’t have the brass neck to boast of its pity. It was, through two generations of Cosgraves, repressive and unforgiving.
Fianna Fail’s record was as clean, if not cleaner, than any party which ever held power between 1932 and 1970, and occasionally since. I’m not referring to Ireland, but globally.
The Ceann Comhairle (Speaker) should put manners on Varadkar, Martin and their admirers. He owes them nothing. He owes his fellow-citizens everything in this centennial year of Dail Eireann.
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