Michael McDowell is a remarkable man. He is a failed politician – he lost his Dáil seat almost twenty years ago. Twelve years ago the party he once led voted itself out of existence. Yet Michael pops up again and again, explaining how politics in Ireland works. Let me tap the back of your neck, Michael…Mmm. As I thought. Metallic ringing sound. Brass, I’d say.
In today’s Irish Times, Michael has an article headed ‘Public being kept in the dark about the true nature of Sinn Féin’. With the sub-heading ‘We are sleepwalking into the hands of democratic centralism’. You can see where this is going.
He accuses – stop laughing, Virginia – he accuses the Irish media of failing “to examine carefully and inform the people about the true nature of Sinn Féin”. That’s because Irish journalism is heavily populated by “former hard left thinkers and commentators”. EH?
So what is the true nature of Sinn Féin that everyone but Michael can’t see? It’s a party which adheres to the rule of democratic centralism – “the doctrine espoused by Lenin in his seminal communist work ‘What Is To Be Done?’
So Mary Lou’s a Leninist? Nice alliteration but somewhat unconvincing. There’s more.
“All debate must be internal; party members must adhere in public to the party line once decided.”
But Michael, Michael, Michael. You’re a married man. When you and Niamh (she’s a professor, you know) have a disagreement, as all couples have from time to time, do you open the front door, step into the street and continue the slanging match there? No, no, no. Like all couples, like all political parties, you try to keep it in the family as much as is humanly possible. Except you’re Sinn Féin, in which case you must hire bullhorns and have it out in the public square.
And it doesn’t end there either. “The recent Cash for Ash inquiry revealed that Sinn Féin ministers in Stormont take directions from an unelected politburo of party officers.” I suppose if you’re in possession of a brain as big as yours, the idea of consulting some one else or heeding advice other than your own must be unthinkable, but that doesn’t make you a Leninist, Michael. Or a “glove puppet”. Apparently the people manipulating these “glove puppets” are boyos in Connolly House in Belfast. Eh – Michael. A word. Tell us – how is it you know all this stuff? When were you last in Connolly House? In West Belfast? In the North-East of Ireland? Ah. I thought so.
Michael concludes on a truly gloomy note: “If things go on as they are, liberal democratic politics may go the way in Ireland that they are going in Hungary, Poland and elsewhere”.
Tell you what, Michael. Have a word with Donald Trump. Like you, he’s a great man for the accusations and, like you again, he is ultimately a sad hate-stoked man, fuming and gnashing that the electorate have consigned him and his followers to the toilet of history.
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