Bad temper even in public, sheer bad manners, judgement that deserts her and costs lasting damage. If it is not yet default behaviour like that of Arlene Foster this has still been a woeful spell for Mary Lou McDonald.
Look away for the moment from the DUP, and who would not want to. Those pictures from the Dáil last week from what should have been an occasion of gender solidarity were hard to credit. Plonked squarely in ‘her’ Dáil seat amidst the female throng, but only after a stand-off, Mary Lou looked isolated, sulky. Photo-shopped, surely? Ever conspiratorial republicans might long to believe that.
It is of course part of the mix that so many in Dublin’s political world dislike McDonald, and republicans. Ingrained cussedness and the old battle order says defy them. So, ahead of a group photograph to mark the centenary of women’s suffrage, McDonald demanded that former Fianna Fáil minister Mary Hanafin yield the seat Hanafin had been ushered into.
Never a pushover, Hanafin complained in her meekest voice that she’d been bullied. She, of course, would not embarrass a Dáil usher for the world. But the usher appealed to the more reasonable of the two, so McDonald got to sit where she ‘always sits’.
Presumably this was in order to be central to the ceremonial photo, drawing the eye again as she did in that celebrated painting of the south’s political women.
Dominating every endeavour they join is also republican form. In their continuing effort to build their vote, that instinct may be as damaging for Sinn Féin as the weight of the Troubles dead, their own volunteers among the almost 1,800 total for whose lost lives the IRA are responsible.
Republican culture says McDonald must pay respects every so often to the IRA dead, with occasional respectful allusion to the IRA’s victims. This is not the easiest twin obligation. A formidable performer in the Dáil and on air, the Mary Lou touch is less sure these days. Maybe the strain is telling.
Losing the able Peadar Tóibín may have been unavoidable but sounded clumsily handled. The presidential election campaign was a bad mistake from the outset. Demanding that Leo Varadkar should be more demanding for Ireland in the Brexit negotiations has a mechanical ring. In so far as people are still listening to the Brexit saga with care, what they hear is that the Irish argument is doing well, thanks in large part to EU solidarity but with little suggestion that Varadkar and Simon Coveney let the side down.
Their harshest critics are the DUP. Which brings us back to that party’s weekend anti-EU spectacle, bolshy business guests, Boris and all, though perhaps not as many star-struck punters as the blond showboater might have been expected to draw. This was second-rate Boris, up to and including scripting a line plump with innuendo that got DUP-washed on delivery.
Significances of a sort were elsewhere. Tipped by some to take the top job should the RHI report demolish Foster, Sir Jeffrey avoided bad-mouthing Theresa May and laid some unction on Enda Kenny and Varadkar for ‘breaking new ground for remembrance in the Republic.’
And Foster apologised, though for the party’s failings on RHI rather than any incompetence of her own. Her famous ‘I am accountable but not responsible’ formula left few strong hopes for candour. But she did say ‘as leader of this party I apologise.’ An apology from the stubborn is always welcome. In the applause that began as ‘apologise’ ended, was there relief she had actually said it? She waited for silence to go straight into ‘As a party we are deeply, deeply sorry for the things we got wrong.’
Then there was the ‘number of other areas where behaviour in our ranks has not matched the standards expected of people holding public office.’ Presumably like the apology on their behalf that was also okayed by the ‘team’, as Foster now depicts a party reportedly disaffected at the top.
Even as the SF’s second president loses her sheen, there are major differences between herself and Foster, as between their organisations, once similarly centralised and sealed. Gerry Adams in retirement has been audible largely on such subjects as his Christmas-present-shaped recipe-book. Arlene’s predecessor, who like Adams ensured his successor faced no contest, has had two serious goes at her now.
Mary Lou should watch it, all the same. With a bad history on your back, courtesy can confound some of the hatred. That was the Martin McGuinness master-class.
