This meeting didn’t happen but it might have. A rural Fianna Fáil backbench TD whispered in the ear of a Fine Gael constituency rival and suggested a quiet drink over in Buswells.
It wasn’t to chat about a contentious local squabble, or even their golf handicap, but the sort of stuff that really mattered.
That would be retaining their seats in a general election, which was long rumoured to be imminent and was now threatening to be even sooner.
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Old dogs for the hard road, they appreciated that the best chance of them squeezing their posteriors into the leather seats in the Dáil for another term was for an age-old charade to be rekindled.
The punters, one insisted, need to be reminded how much they despised each other.
So it was agreed to create some fictive tensions between them at the earliest opportunity. After Mass the following Sunday sounded appropriate. Some good old-fashioned yahooing. Motion carried.
Facetious perhaps, but then there’s no need for a cosy summit over a pint and toastie. Both parties know, from the very top down, that the greatest asset either has is the ancient animus and rivalry that separates them.
There’s a quiet acknowledgment that the rude health of one is dependent on the ability of the other to jeer and taunt across the floor.
Each, in the absence of any ideological gap let alone chasm, is defined by the perennial opposition and faux loathing of its foe. In any sort of rational political context, the success of one should be dependent on the other’s weakness but, over the fullness of time, the opposite has happened in Ireland.
The historical differences are as well known to previous generations as the seven deadly sins, but have no relevance to anyone born after ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
True, Fine Gael’s forebears in the 1920s were stingy to old-age pensioners, heavy-handed when it came to dispensing justice and tended to side with ruddy-faced ranchers.
Shiny and idealist Fianna Fáil subsequently came to represent those who, in the absence of a Labour Party which was always one election shy of a breakthrough, felt Ireland had replaced one shower of grabbing hoors with another. There was even a certain amount of hazy ideological daylight between the two big parties then.
In the 1930s, Éamon de Valera built public housing, improved welfare and was almost radical. But afterwards both parties would unevenly share responsibility for multiple social and economic failures up until the 1960s, at which point Fianna Fáil ministers, happily splashing about in Seán Lemass’s rising tide, began to favour neatly tailored mohair suits.
By then little separated the two, except that Fine Gael could graze on the fertile high moral ground if only because it wasn’t in power often enough to be as shamelessly grasping.
In the absence of either aspiring to anything other than the winning or retention of power, orchestrated scandals like last week’s ‘votegate’ spat are heaven-sent, giving both sides the chance to perform an elaborate, foot-stomping, pre-election haka. But we can’t be too dismissive, as the electoral alternatives are depressing. Take your pick from toy-town Marxists, who couldn’t tell Karl from Groucho, or a Green Party so attuned to reality that it suggests farmers ditch their tractors and take the Luas to the creamery.
So voters, half of whom chose either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in 2016, play along with this embarrassing, choreographed charade. In the absence of anything better they reluctantly recognise that the big two, more often than not, press the right buttons. Except, it goes without saying, for last week.
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Home » Analysis & Comment » Frank Coughlan: 'The faux haka that is party opposition'
Frank Coughlan: 'The faux haka that is party opposition'
This meeting didn’t happen but it might have. A rural Fianna Fáil backbench TD whispered in the ear of a Fine Gael constituency rival and suggested a quiet drink over in Buswells.
It wasn’t to chat about a contentious local squabble, or even their golf handicap, but the sort of stuff that really mattered.
That would be retaining their seats in a general election, which was long rumoured to be imminent and was now threatening to be even sooner.
Please log in or register with Independent.ie for free access to this article.
Log In
New to Independent.ie? Create an account
Old dogs for the hard road, they appreciated that the best chance of them squeezing their posteriors into the leather seats in the Dáil for another term was for an age-old charade to be rekindled.
The punters, one insisted, need to be reminded how much they despised each other.
So it was agreed to create some fictive tensions between them at the earliest opportunity. After Mass the following Sunday sounded appropriate. Some good old-fashioned yahooing. Motion carried.
Facetious perhaps, but then there’s no need for a cosy summit over a pint and toastie. Both parties know, from the very top down, that the greatest asset either has is the ancient animus and rivalry that separates them.
There’s a quiet acknowledgment that the rude health of one is dependent on the ability of the other to jeer and taunt across the floor.
Each, in the absence of any ideological gap let alone chasm, is defined by the perennial opposition and faux loathing of its foe. In any sort of rational political context, the success of one should be dependent on the other’s weakness but, over the fullness of time, the opposite has happened in Ireland.
The historical differences are as well known to previous generations as the seven deadly sins, but have no relevance to anyone born after ‘Rock Around the Clock’.
True, Fine Gael’s forebears in the 1920s were stingy to old-age pensioners, heavy-handed when it came to dispensing justice and tended to side with ruddy-faced ranchers.
Shiny and idealist Fianna Fáil subsequently came to represent those who, in the absence of a Labour Party which was always one election shy of a breakthrough, felt Ireland had replaced one shower of grabbing hoors with another. There was even a certain amount of hazy ideological daylight between the two big parties then.
In the 1930s, Éamon de Valera built public housing, improved welfare and was almost radical. But afterwards both parties would unevenly share responsibility for multiple social and economic failures up until the 1960s, at which point Fianna Fáil ministers, happily splashing about in Seán Lemass’s rising tide, began to favour neatly tailored mohair suits.
By then little separated the two, except that Fine Gael could graze on the fertile high moral ground if only because it wasn’t in power often enough to be as shamelessly grasping.
In the absence of either aspiring to anything other than the winning or retention of power, orchestrated scandals like last week’s ‘votegate’ spat are heaven-sent, giving both sides the chance to perform an elaborate, foot-stomping, pre-election haka. But we can’t be too dismissive, as the electoral alternatives are depressing. Take your pick from toy-town Marxists, who couldn’t tell Karl from Groucho, or a Green Party so attuned to reality that it suggests farmers ditch their tractors and take the Luas to the creamery.
So voters, half of whom chose either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil in 2016, play along with this embarrassing, choreographed charade. In the absence of anything better they reluctantly recognise that the big two, more often than not, press the right buttons. Except, it goes without saying, for last week.
Source: Read Full Article