Opinion

Tom Kelly: Seamus Mallon provides a lesson in leadership in turbulent political times

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

Seamus Mallon has weighed into the border poll debate. Picture by Mal McCann
Seamus Mallon has weighed into the border poll debate. Picture by Mal McCann Seamus Mallon has weighed into the border poll debate. Picture by Mal McCann

Recently I came across a book called, ‘I wish I’d been there’. In it twenty historians take a period of history and explain why they would have liked to witness it.

Like others, I have been fortunate to witness many significant moments in recent Anglo-Irish history, albeit my view has been from the bottom rung on the ladder.

Quite often history is now told through programmes like ‘Time Team’ and more recently David Olusoga’s fascinating production ‘A House Through Time’ which recounts the past through the narratives of those who lived in a building.

That said, I am still drawn to the narratives of the big players and witnesses.

So amidst my political punditry on the EU elections I headed off to pick up two new books - Fintan O’Toole’s ‘Heroic Failure' and the co-authored biography of Seamus Mallon (with Andy Pollak) ‘A Shared Home Place’.

O’Toole is a fascinating writer who has the ability to create commentary which reads with the pace of a racy novel. Given the pithy, quick witted and often sardonic nature of the main character, the Mallon book has been long anticipated.

O’Toole’s book is prophetic. At the time of writing, Prime Minister Theresa May has just tearfully announced her resignation. O’Toole carefully dissects the rise of English nationalism and the slow emergence of a particular form of unscrupulous elite who are hell bent on altering the political and social equilibrium that has endured in Britain since the Second World War.

The future now looks quite bleak as the quartet of Aaron Banks, Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg and of course Boris Johnson, (now front runner to succeed Mrs May) take centre stage.

Although Mrs May cut a pathetic figure as prime minister, she always appeared to be earnest. She led a party so riven over Brexit that it made the Borgias look like the Waltons.

May was stabbed in the back more times than Julius Caesar. That said, she sealed her own fate by ignoring parliament, over-looking moderates and failing to reach out to Labour, Lib-Dems and the SNP. Instead she tried to placate her own right wingers, the extremists and the insatiable DUP. And in doing so May wasn’t so much trying to feed crocodiles as swim with piranhas.

O’Toole concludes that the umbrella of shared values in things such as the welfare state, the NHS and a tolerant approach to migration which once held Britain together is not so much leaking as broken. How broken was evident when a prominent female Tory advocate in Northern Ireland berated the prime minister for being emotional in her resignation speech, saying a male PM wouldn’t do it. Apart from being historically incorrect, (Churchill cried often and Thatcher had a tearful departure too), the Tory empathy button is clearly non existent.

Seamus Mallon’s book also propelled him into the spotlight last week for his declared support for what he and his co-writer call ‘parallel consent’ in relation to Irish unity.

This writer has always been a fervent admirer of Mallon’s leadership, tenacity and oratory, even when such admiration wasn’t reciprocated. As a biography Mallon’s book is an enjoyable read for its glimpses of life from 1940s through to the turbulent political years in the 70s and 80s. Millennials take note.

His detail on the Good Friday Agreement negotiations make for a sobering reflection of when politics was the art of the possible.

It’s moving to see in print recognition of a political spouse. Gertrude Mallon was an heroic lady who endured much during her husband's long political career. It’s refreshing to see her sacrifices reflected in his biography.

Unusually for a political biography, Mallon spends three chapters talking about the future and this has been at the expense of insights into an era of Irish politics that hasn't been fully explored by his contemporaries.

No one more than Mallon has earned the right to talk about the future shape of an united Ireland. He rightly concludes that unplanned unity or a premature border poll will be divisive but his concept of parallel consent is wrong.

If it ever came into effect, it would devalue the vote of nationalists and would gift unionists a permanent veto. Experience and history has shown it is unionists who need to grasp the concept of generosity if they want to preserve the status quo.

Nonetheless, Mallon is the exception to the Greek quote he ends with. Seamus has lived long enough to sit amongst the trees he planted and take shade.