At the outset here, let it be made abundantly clear – I am not anti development. That could hardly be the case when – admittedly tediously slowly – the manner in which disabled access to places has improved tenfold over the last couple of decades. Is it perfect? Not by a long shot – Croke Park I’m glaring at you – but one cannot be too scathing of a sector which has given one’s older sibling employment in infrastructural engineering for three and a half decades.
However, no secret has ever been made of the soul destroying effect the – needless – erosion of agricultural land in this locality in preference to the construction of mass concrete jungles has had on yours truly. From here I can hear cries about glass houses and stones, but, on that all that will be said is this – in a democracy, majority rules. But if I wasn’t depending on wheels and a bucket of bolts outcomes might have been vastly different.
With the shambles of a Presidential Election having recently taken place, the mind was cast back to a previous one. For it wasn’t long before Paddy Hillery completed his second term of office that he officially opened Dunboyne Community Centre. And that, ladies and gents, is the first instance of agricultural land being lost to concrete poisoning which can be recalled.
A big chunk out of what will forever be Fr Rispin’s Field. One of them, that is. The rest of which – directly opposite our house – would become St Peter’s College nearly a decade thereafter. That’s a horse of a different colour altogether but we’ll leave it walking its box for now.
It’s probably no bad thing that a few selection processes for the occupation of the big house in the Park more or less transpired without incident. Save Sean Gallagher’s campaign being scandalously sabotaged and the individual or individuals involved therein getting off as free as perpetrators of certain real offences seem to do with alarming regularity.
The manner in which the late Brian Lenehan Snr was disgustingly betrayed by Charlie Haughey and others was the nearest to political slurry spreading one is ever likely to encounter. With the splash plate pointed back at the windows of your own machine instead of out the field.
After three universally popular occupants of Aras An Uachtarain, Michael D. will be a near impossible act to follow. That said, had Mairead McGuinness been well enough to go for the position it is quite likely there would be no need for an election at all.
Regrettably, health issues prevented the Meath woman from going for the position. However, the Drumconrath lady being out of the running meant that candidate selection had to be rushed in a ham fisted farce which was wholly ill fitting for the office in question.
Now, I wouldn’t have much of a view on who Fine Gael ran in the election either way, but would whole heartedly agree with the sentiment expressed by MEP, ex GAA President and thorough gentleman Sean Kelly that he was indeed shafted.
And going with the candidate Simon Harris’s party did plump for was the political equivalent of employing the Scooby-Doo Detective Agency when you could have had Joe Kenda, the Homicide Hunter. Mind you, anybody leaning similarly to yours truly is in no position to cast aspersions on anybody with regard to candidate selection.
No secret has ever been made of the esteem in which Micheal Martin is held on a personal basis in this seat. That, however, does not change the fact that when last there was reason for a leadership election in Fianna Fail, my preference absolutely have been for Brian Lenehan Jnr, Lord rest him, to assume the role.
Politics being as it is though, everything is swings and roundabouts. Mr Martin does, in all fairness to him, deserve credit for his introduction of the smoking ban and, in conjunction with his understudy in the smaller Government partner, for the manner in which they negotiated the nation through the Covid-19 outbreak.
Two rights don’t automatically fix related wrongs though. Thus, the Corkman’s ostracising of both Michael McGrath and Barry Cowen – the two most likely challengers to his leadership – to Brussels and the selections of both Grainne Seoige and Jim Gavin as election candidates were clangers equally in their monstrosity to Thierry Henry’s hand ball against Ireland.
The FF barking dogs on the street know Bertie Ahern should have been the party’s candidate for the Aras, but for some reason which has gone shamefully unchallenged for years, Martin has treated the former holder of his office disgracefully since assuming leadership of the party 14 years ago.
Perhaps most surprising of all though is the following. That those whose job it supposedly is to poke holes in and make life difficult for the Government parties, couldn’t come up with an alternative under their own steam other than to row in behind Catherine Connolly. For example, could Sinn Fein not have run Caoimhginn O’Caolainn or Labour not have run Joan Burton or Liz O’Donnell.
Indeed, on mature recollection, as a decent man once said, had the Taoiseach gone for the Presidency himself it could have been a win-win situation for all sides. Instead of being a scenario which – with all due respect – few if any would have foreseen playing out.
Temptation might be to say democracy might be desirable but it’s not always right. However, when a candidate. regardless of who or she may be, gets nigh on a million votes one can only doff the cap to them and wish them well. So it is that we await with interest how the Connolly Presidency will play out.
It will be interesting to see will certain entities rifle through closets in search of skeletons as much as has been the case in similar cases in times past.
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