YOU might disagree with certain individuals on political issues but still listen to them because they have a sense of humour.
The American satirist PJ O’Rourke, who died last week at the age of 74, is a good example. His views and opinions were very conservative but the witty manner in which he expressed them meant he was impossible to ignore.
His forebears emigrated to the US at the time of the Great Famine in the 1840s. Legend has it that, during the Famine period, some Catholics in Ireland converted to Protestantism in return for food. It was called “taking the soup” and its prevalence has been greatly exaggerated, since most of the Protestant charity work had no strings attached.
The Irish who crossed the Atlantic into the welcoming arms of Uncle Sam were mostly Catholics and, in political terms, the vast majority of them and/or their descendants supported the Democratic Party. No doubt they would have regarded PJ, who was on the Republican side (in the American, not Irish sense), as having “taken the soup” in terms of political sympathies. Indeed one of his books was titled, ‘Republican Party Reptile’ (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1995).
As for religion, he joked that his family became “the world’s only Protestant O’Rourkes”. However this had nothing to do with nourishment: his grandfather broke with the Catholic Church when he got a divorce.
Despite his conservative instincts, O’Rourke didn’t agree with Trump’s politics. In the 2016 presidential election, he couldn’t bring himself to support “The Donald” and he wrote: “I endorse Hillary Clinton for president. She is the second worst thing that could happen to America”.
Quite apart from Trump, he had reservations about the Republicans, whom he described as “the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it”.
He came up with another one-liner that would doubtless appeal to opponents of the Northern Ireland Protocol, when he wrote about Europe: “I’ve had it with these dopey little countries and all their poky borders. You can’t swing a cat without sending it through customs.” His quest for subject matter brought him to west Belfast in the late 1980s and he described the area as being “so thoroughly journalised that urchins in the street ask, ‘Will you be needing a sound bite?’”
Commenting on the candidates in the 1988 US presidential election, he wrote: “Bush and Dukakis told us exactly where they stood on only one issue – they were both in favour of getting elected.”
That’s one thing that all the candidates in the forthcoming Stormont Assembly election have in common. The protocol is of course a divisive issue and DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was seen by some as adopting a more conciliatory line on it recently (a contention he disputes.) His remarks were followed by a less-than-fulsome reception for his DUP colleague Sammy Wilson at the well-attended anti-protocol rally in Markethill last Friday night.
Interestingly, the recent Institute of Irish Studies University of Liverpool/The Irish News opinion poll showed that only 11.7 per cent of unionist respondents regarded post-Brexit trade arrangements as the most important issue heading into the assembly election.
PJ O’Rourke’s acerbic wit might have provided some light relief from the stress we are all feeling over the Russia/Ukraine confrontation. In the calmer atmosphere that prevailed last October, I was holding up the 2017 Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine as a possible solution to the protocol problem, since it minimises the role played by the European Court of Justice in any dispute over trade. But it hardly needs saying that the protocol difficulties are not remotely in the same league as the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
On the domestic front, the SDLP has been rightly praised for its decision, as a mark of respect on the sad passing of the DUP’s Christopher Stalford, to reschedule the conference the party was planning to hold in Bellaghy last Sunday. This was a welcome acknowledgment that, whatever differences and divisions exist, we all share a common humanity.
The SDLP’s fifth-place rating at 9.9 per cent in the aforementioned poll may well reflect the view of some voters who normally support them that the opportunity for Sinn Féin to take the office of first minister from the DUP should not be let slip. There’s also the fact that two of the most impressive SDLP representatives hold seats in the House of Commons instead of Stormont – party leader Colum Eastwood and Belfast South MP Claire Hanna.
However, it’s important for nationalists to have a presence at Westminster since Sinn Féin persists with its abstentionist position.
Email: Ddebre1@aol.com; Twitter: @DdeBreadun
