The Christmas spirit was clearly in evidence in southern politics with the news that Sinn Féin had invited members of the media for the first time to have a festive drink in the Dáil Bar at Leinster House.
To borrow an expression by a former TD from another party, whom we can call Deputy Malaprop because he got his d’s and c’s mixed-up: “It was ‘un-pre-de-cented’.”
The Sinn Féin press people, who are usually very efficient, didn’t invite your humble scribe and I wondered if this was because of my critical writings in this column about the party’s policy of Westminster abstentionism. Or could it be word had got out that I am an abstentionist myself when it comes to alcohol?
But no, dear reader, it was all the internet’s fault. A new Whatsapp connection had been set up for media notifications and my name was accidentally omitted. It has been added now, however, so that means I have something to look forward to, for the next 12 months.
An inside source tells me there was a broad spectrum in attendance, including media outlets who don’t always make Sinn Féin’s day with the nature of their coverage. The party itself was represented by the formidable trio of Pearse Doherty from Donegal, David Cullinane from Waterford and Martin Kenny from the constituency of Sligo-Leitrim. Mary Lou McDonald was visiting the West Bank in the Palestinian Territories and there was no sign either of Gerry Adams, who has been surprisingly puritanical in the past over what he saw as unduly liberal opening hours for the Dáil Bar.
Some might be tempted to regard Gerry as a bit of a spoilsport on that issue, but he has a light-hearted side as well. Remember My Little Book of Tweets from 2016? Now he has another volume out, called The Negotiator’s Cook Book.
Drinks in the Dáil Bar and a semi-humorous culinary tome: could it be that the Shinners have decided to chill out a bit lately?
Adams now has a remarkable total of 17 books to his name and the cookery manual was put together “with a little help from Ted Howell and Pádraic Wilson”. It is interesting that Howell, hitherto a low-profile but very significant member of the Sinn Féin team, has been brought onto the public stage at last.
As well as Christmas cake and pudding, readers of this latest book can munch on recipes for Panacotta and Lemon Drizzle Cake among other delights. I don’t know about you, Gerry, but it was far from Panacotta and Lemon Drizzle Cake I was reared!
The book is in Irish and English, the first such volume in Gerry’s name to my knowledge. It would have to be bilingual, in light of the Stormont stand-off. At the same time, some of us who have been labouring in the Gaelic vineyard for most of our lives are a little bemused at the stance Sinn Féin is taking and the fact that “the sweet and kingly tongue of the Gael” has become a road-block on the political highway.
Mary Lou had a good proportion of Irish in her last party conference speech in Belfast. She appeared to have a reasonable command of the language but her diction in one or two instances was a little startling, as though someone schooled in the Munster or Connemara dialect had been coached by a person with the very distinctive Ulster pronunciation.
More recently, she addressed the Friends of Sinn Féin annual dinner in New York but what was described as the “full speech” of 1,681 words, issued by the party on email, did not include so much as a token utterance in Irish.
Even “Tiocfaidh ár lá”, translated as “Our day will come”, was replaced at the end of the oration by “Up the rebels” - although this may be understandable given the rather ridiculous over-reaction to her use of the former expression in an address last February.
True, the New York audience would have had little or no command of Irish in most cases, but they would doubtless have appreciated the political significance of using the language.
Against this background, it is rather bizarre that the Assembly is on hold primarily because of a dispute over the status of the Gaelic tongue. It wouldn’t matter so much if Brexit wasn’t raging through these two islands like a never-ending tornado with the capacity to destroy so much in its path. The demands for Irish are perfectly reasonable and justified but there is a strong case in the current emergency for returning to Stormont and restoring the executive on a time-limited basis in an attempt to exert some influence over the UK political system which is putting us all at risk.
Ddebre1@aol.com
