The following is inspired by the father of Magical Realism Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Rather than being a truly factual account of politics in the constituency of Cavan – Monaghan it should be viewed as a type of fable, containing elements that may be true.
The constituency should be a five-seater but through a rather desperate attempt by Destiny’s Soldiers (cousins of Destiny’s Child) to hang on to electoral decency a certain doctor, whose son is a priest as well as having ambitions to be taoiseach, was made into a peacock. As a peacock he has presided over the meetings of the nation’s most pre-eminent poultry coop for the past five years, often interrupting other birds with his dry Carrickmacross cackle.
I live in the Cavan end of the constituency and we have no interest in the Monaghan crowd whatsoever. They’re a different breed. Life is quieter here is more predictable with a very stable population. It is said the stability is due to the fact that whenever a new baby is born another man has to leave the county.
Recently a certain minister of state called Brendan Smith attempted to launch his electoral campaign with a splash, He got a red carpet and a big bouncy castle, and because Daniel O’Donnell and Bruce Forsythe were already booked he had to do with Noeleen Dempsey. Brendan was there with his backing vocalists and all the party activists who had, over the years, damned him as a complete and utter waster.
Because of the day that was in it he wanted everyone, including himself, to look really sexy. Party colleagues had a change of clean underwear as well as a special dousing of Brute, while the air was heavily laden with the aromatic odours of Preparation H. The local comic, better known as Fukcyiz Magazine (sic - and believe me it is) or the Angle Clit was on hand to give really good coverage, no awkward questions about the health service or regional development, you know what I mean.
But Brendan’s party was gate-crashed by a nasty little journalist from a rival publication to Fukcyiz, one that has balls and spells things correctly. He had the temerity to say that Brendan and the band were not beautiful. What was more, and this was the unkindest cut of all, he even hinted that Brendan might be a future compere of Countdown. Brendan was apoplectic. He wanted to be the compere of Countdown right now, not when Des O’Connor eventually falls off his chair, and he wants to enjoy Carol’s tender teasing before she is replaced by a younger model.
The minister of state was in a state. He was pissing himself with rage, breaking bricks with his arse. He contemplated standing outside the offices of the newspaper, shouting “Boo” to people as they left. But his friends persuaded him to withdrew his advertising from the offending newspaper, which they felt, as a free newspaper was more dependant on advertising revenue and thus more vulnerable to such victimisation.
This has had a very unfortunate impact. You know what happens when a guy who is weak but otherwise harmless tries to be Mr Macho? Yep, that’s right. Brendan has been made to look like Mr Muscle Who Loves The Jobs You Hate. He has been left with his pants down and his USB adaptor dangling in the breeze.
I mean, come on Brendan. Irish politics is a contact sport. You’ve been a TD for nearly fifteen years now and you’ve been involved in politics since the mid ’70s. Imagine you were on the football pitch and a member of the other team (or maybe your own) says something unflattering, maybe implying that that’s not all mud on the back of your shorts. You don’t give him a Zidane do you, or if someone in the crowd calls you a wanker you don’t jump in for a Cantona. No, you take it on the chin like a man Brenda.
Removing his advertising was the mark of a desperate person who was scared shit-less of actually fighting his corner and standing up for something. Does he really think he’s not going to get elected?
It was also the act of a petty-minded and corrupt local political establishment which cannot enter into any debate or accept anything except silly, hackneyed praise, where everyone is happy and prays for those whom God has placed above them and where nobody has ever told when they’re being abused, and where, in the words of the Trems Silence is Golden. This was really an attack on freedom of expression.
But it is so pathetic. The newspaper to which I refer is the mouthpiece of the local establishment. It is filled, like a communist-era broadsheet from some far-off Autonomous Republic, with pictures of the local godfathers and godmothers, usually arranged in toy-soldier poses over the caption “Pictured (l to r)…” as they attend, wine-glasses in hand, some reception or launch. Anyone who criticises the paper, for example over its incapacity to print a paragraph without a plethora of spelling errors, is blacklisted, as I have been. But in the Internet age there is something really sad about a local rag which has seen better times attempting to silence its critics by exclusion from its pages. It’s a bit like King Canute trying to command the waves to go back.
Cavan-Monaghan and Ireland as a whole needs representatives with courage. Brendan had said that the reason why Bertie the Barrow-Boy had not promoted him to ministerial office was that Bertie didn’t like him. I’m beginning to think maybe Bertie knew a thing or two about character.
I have known Brendan Smith for up on thirty years and for most of that time I would like to consider him a friend. I have also said that he is a fundaamentall decent human being – unlike many of his party colleagues. He no doubt views these colleagues as friends, but surely he is savvy enough to know that friendship and politics are contradictions in terms. He also is hopefully fully aware that the members of his backing group are just waiting for him to put a foot wrong or decide that he is, to use a local phrase, going to throw up his arse, and then Brendan and Destiny’s Soldiers will have a new lead singer.
So nothing happens in Macondo, nothing ever has happened here, and nothing ever will.
