I’m doing something right now that I haven’t done for months – listening to the Nolan Show. At the start of the show Nolan declared that this was such a major matter, he had cleared the decks and would focus on one matter of public importance: the lack of distancing at the funeral of Bobby Storey.
Nolan was quite bubbling over with indignation: Michelle O’Neill preached one thing and then yesterday failed to do that thing – observe social distancing. The thought crossed my mind: did Nolan cover the Black Lives Matter demonstrations, and if he did, was he as froth-mouthed about it?
So let’s be clear about one thing: this is about detestation of Bobby Storey and of republicans and republicanism. The journalist Amanda Ferguson is at present making the point that the garda murdered in the south elicited a major funeral, attended by the Garda Commissioner, the then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and dozens, maybe hundreds of the dead man’s colleagues. No one uttered a peep of criticism.
I watched online the procession to the graveyard yesterday and the oration by Gerry Adams, and what struck me was how scrupulously the figures in black and white were observing the distancing rule. I also saw lots of people lining up behind the black and white figures, and these people weren’t standing at a distance from one another. Whether these consisted of family groups or just people bunched together I have no way of knowing. Maybe Nolan will investigate.
Much has been made of Michelle O’Neill’s having posed for selfies. That certainly would breach the distancing rule, but that wasn’t Nolan’s focus. His focus was Bobby Storey’s funeral.
Arlene Foster is now on the Nolan Show, telling the world that Michelle O’Neill has breached the rules and should now apologise for her actions.
Yes, Virginia. That’s Arlene Foster who was behind the monumentally costly and monumentally stupid RHI initiative which cost us hundreds of millions. I honestly can’t remember if she apologised for all that.
“Most people will look at the footage from yesterday and say ‘That was wrong’ “ Arlene has just declared.
Well, I suppose today’s hot-breathed outrage is predictable. I mean, it’s not the first time that unionism has metaphorically stood on a coffin and megaphoned its condemnation of republicanism to all right-thinking people.
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