People are funny. The late David Dunseith used to say that people heard what they wanted to hear, rather than what was said. The same thing can apply to writing and reading.
Recently in my Andytown News column I mentioned that Mairead McGuinness, who had dropped out of the running for presidential candidate, was a very effective media performer and had been widely admired for her response to British politicians and spokespeople when she spoke on the Brexit question. She also, while still in consideration as a presidential candidate, led the opinion polls by a large margin.
Then a man called Niall Somebody from Galway read this and declared in a letter to the Andytown News that I thought Mairead McGuinness would have made a great president, but I was ignoring this and that and d’uther thing. Since I wasn’t advocating for Mairead, I naturally left out all sorts of stuff. Not good enough, Niall figured.
He went on from that to suggest that I had considered Catherine Connolly a less-desirable candidate, and went on to list Ms Connolly’s strengths. In fact I had expressed admiration for Connolly. I also suggested that she had been nominated by the Labour party, who had then called for unity of parties on the left. In other words, Labour had not negotiated in advance with Sinn Féin, whose support for Connolly would be vital in any presidential race. Niall said that was rubbish, because People Before Profit and the Social Democrats had endorsed her two weeks before Labour. Maybe they did, but if they did, they did it very quietly.
In either case my main point remained: the strategy was, assuming they hadn’t consulted Sinn Féin earlier, to bounce the Shinners into supporting her whether they liked it or not. If they didn’t endorse her, there would doubtless be accusations of splintering the left from Labour and other small parties. Finally, I said at one point (it’s a writing tic I suffer from) ‘Gimme a break’. Witty old Niall suggested the Andytown News should fire me and that’d give me a break.
I repeat: people are funny.
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