Oidhreacht Bertie Ahern

Fuair do Spailpín Fánach ríomhphost ó fhealsúnóir atá ina chara dom ar maidin, agus eisean ag smaoineamh ar imeacht Bertie Ahern. Ba chóir do Bhertie a cheacht deireanach a fhoglaim ó Chathal Ó hEoghaigh dar leis, agus luaigh ar Othello ar a lá deireachach. Ach in ionad na focail Othello a luaigh Ó hEochaigh, "rinne mé chuid séirbhise ar son an Stáit," ba chóir do Bherite tagairt a dhéanamh ar Iago: "seo mar a chuirim mo sparán i m'amadán dom."

Tugaim faoi deara gur duirt Enda Ó Cionnaigh gurbh iad eachtra Mahon a mbeidh ina oidhreacht ag Bertie Ahern. Tá an mí-cheart ag Ó Cionnaigh agus, mar is gnáth leis, ní thuigeann sé an uair. Agus Bertie tite ar a chlaíomh anois, tá a oidhreacht slán go deo na ndeor. Is cuma cad a thárlóidh ag Mahon as seo amach. An scéal is measa a dtiocfaidh amach, mura a bhfuil an dubh ina bhán againne go deo, ná gur ól sé braoinín fíona altóra, nach raibh sé ar thóir na mbuachaillí altóra. Ní fear olc é Bertie Ahern mar duine; agus eisean ina Thaoiseach bhí an tír níos saibhre ná mar a bhí riamh, agus thóg sé síochán don Tuaisceart. Is mór-éacht ceachtar acu; lena cheile, níl duine ar bith comh mór le Bertie Ahern i stáir na tíre ná Dev féin, b'fhéidir.

Bhí réalt óg Fine Gael, Lucinda Creighton, ar an raidió aréir, agus ise ag cáineadh an dámaiste a rinneadh Bertie Ahern ar mheas polaitíochta in Éirinn. Is fíor dí go bhfuil meas polaitíochta níos ísle na mar a bhí riamh, ach níl ar Ahern amháin atá an locht. Cá raibh an freasúra nuair a bhí Bertie faoi bhrú? Cén fáth nar ionsaíodar air i rith an toghchán an bhliain seo caite? Mar ní chóir daoine ina gcónaí i dtithe gloine cloig a chaitheamh. Tá an boladh bréan ar na polaiteoirí mar tá an boladh céanna orainne go leir? Nuair atá cúpla punt sínte amach duinn - "duit féin, a mhic, meas tú," - agus an sméideach tugtha duinn, nó nuair a fheicimid seans cúpla punt a dhéanamh ar leathaobh, cé againne a dhiultaíonn? Sinne atá leisciúl, agus gach uile duine eile ag baint gach pingin rua.

Ach tá rud níos measa ag cur isteach ar an Spailpín anois, agus mise ag iarraidh radharc a fháil ar na blianta romhainn. An bhfuil an polaitíocht tabhachtach fós in Éirinn? Cén fáth nach bhfuil freasúra ann? An bhfuil an Tánaiste ina fhíor-fhreasúra? Mar tá níos mó seans ag leas-cheannaire Fianna Fáil dul ina Thaoiseach ná mar atá ag ceannaire an fhreasúra faoi láthair, agus ní fheictear fógra dá laghad go n-athrófar an scéal.

Beimid ag céillúradh an tÉirí Amach i gceann ocht mbliana, agus bunús an Saorstáit i 2021. Cén cuma a mbeidh ar an stát ansin? An mbeidh na Poláinnigh bogtha ar aís anóir? An meid roinnt maith Gaeil imithe leosan, ar thóir obair, mar a d'imigh a sínsear leis na blianta, agus na tithe breá nua folamha ar a gcul? Cad í Éirinn - tír neamhspleach, nó ceantar iarthair na hEorpa? Labhraitear roinnt bhladair faoi fhobairt na tuaithe, ach cad atá ag tárlú ach go mbogann gach aon duine go Bleá Cliath ar thóir oibre? Sin an fadhb is mó, níos laidre ná cúrsaí eacnamaíochta nach bhfuil faoi smacht tír bheag cosuil linne ar aon anós, atá os comhair an Taoisigh nua.

Maidir le Bertie féin, fágaim an focal deireanach le Uinsin de Brún, agus alt ar scríobh sé san Irish Times ar an 23ú lá Meitheamh, 2004. Scríobh sé faoin meid foighne a bhí ag Bertie Ahern, gurbh é an bua is mó aige gurbh fhéidir leis gréim a choinnéal ar a chuid foighne agus gach uile duine ag ionsaigh air, do dtí go ndéantar an beart. Agus leabhar Jonathan Powell foilsithe le déanaí, ag taispeant comh deacair a bhí díospóireacht sular ndéarna an beart i Stormont, is cóir duinn cuimhneamh ar sin. Tá súil agam go mbeidh gach bua is beannacht ag Bertie Ahern i bhfómhar a saoil. Rinne sé roinnt oibre ar son na hÉireann, agus ní thógfar uaidh go deo í.





Technorati Tags: Gaeilge, polaitíocht, Bertie Ahern, cúrsaí reatha

John Maughan, Colm Coyle, and the Butterfly Effect

John Maughan fell on his sword as Roscommon manager last night. The writing has been on the wall for some time. Maughan was always an odd fit in Roscommon, as any Mayoman might be in that fiercely proud county, and once the results started to go wrong the rope was always going to be twisted for him.

It’s unfortunate, too, that this ugly business has developed between Maughan and the Roscommon supporters. GAA supporters can be astonishing in their levels of abuse. It should be noted, however, that Roscommon has some of the best supporters in Ireland. We often read in the papers how winning an All-Ireland is “necessary” for some counties in order to promote Gaelic football in those counties; this is not necessary in Roscommon. Even now, when Roscommon’s May 18th Championship fixture looks likely to make Salthill look like Normandy in 1944 you may rest assured that, even against daunting odds, the Rossies will be there in numbers, chests out, primrose and blue flags fluttering amidst the shot and shell.

Perhaps John Maughan himself will be there as well, doing radio commentary with RTÉ. Whoever is the new manager of Roscommon has a free throw at this Championship; if he succeeds, meaning beats Galway, then he’s a Messiah, and if he loses it was all Maughan’s fault anyway. It’s hard to win.

No-one knows how hard it is to win more than Maughan himself of course. Now, in 2008, having been run out of Roscommon, run out of Mayo in his second coming and having walked out of Fermanagh, John Maughan is synonymous with being a loser. He is hated in Mayo for falling out with players like David Brady, Kevin O’Neill and Peter Butler. And all the incredible, genuinely incredible achievements of his career as a manager are eclipsed by the fact that Mayo did not win an All-Ireland while John Maughan was manager.

Before Ger Loughnane led the hurlers to glory in Clare in 1995, John Maughan managed the Clare footballers to victory over Kerry in the Munster Final. Astonishing. Three years later, post the Jack O’Shea and committee management eras, Mayo were languishing in Division 3 of the football league – one division below where Roscommon are now, you’ll note – and Maughan led Mayo to a League semi-final and an All-Ireland Final replay. There was strolling room on Hill 16 when Mayo hammered Kerry by six points in 1996, and the porter was sweeter on Dorset Street than it’s been before or since. Who remembers that now?

Critics of Maughan say it was his inflexibility that cost Mayo those All-Irelands. Without that inflexibility, that frightening drive that he could summon, would Mayo have got there in the first place? On the evidence of the prior four years – humiliated in Tuam, humiliated by Leitrim, humiliated by Cork, humiliated by Donegal – not hardly. In his marvellous book on the recent history of Mayo football Keith Duggan recounts Maughan training regimes with Clare, where he shamed the panel by having his wife, Audrey, outrun the Bannermen on the beaches, and with Mayo, when Maughan devoted himself to getting Anthony “Fat Larry” Finnerty fit. It’s Full Metal Jacket stuff, but it got results.

But not the result. The ne plus ultra result.

It’s untrue to say that it was inflexibility that cost Maughan those All-Irelands. What cost Maughan everlasting glory in the county Mayo was the fact that Colm Coyle was able to point from seventy yards – on the half-volley! – to draw the first game in the miracle summer of 1996, and then got sent off instead of John McDermott in the second.

Everything else follows from that. The performance against Kerry in 1997 was abject, and by then the novelty of not being on our knees had worn off in Mayo. It was time to pick holes. By the time Mayo lost another Ireland, in 2004, the County Board spent 2005 waiting for Maughan to slip up and when he did, it was so long, thanks for nothing.

Colm Coyle is at the heart of the butterfly effect that saw John Maughan run out of Roscommon this morning. The butterfly effect is that phenomenon of Chaos Theory that states a butterfly’s wings flapping in Hawaii can cause, ultimately, a hurricane in Kansas. And so it’s come to pass. If Colm Coyle had not pointed that shot, Mayo would have held on to win their first All-Ireland since the ‘fifties, and John Maughan would never have been manager of Roscommon, because we’d still be buying his porter for him in Mayo. That’s the difference.

How thin a line is it? This thin: before, in their infinite wisdom, replacing it with Des Cahill’s rather disappointing Road to Croker, RTÉ had a magnificent GAA magazine show called “Breaking Ball.” One of the segments of that show was called Heaven and Hell, where great GAA figures relived moments of either Heaven or Hell from their careers. Coyler was on once, and they asked him to shoot from seventy yards, to see if he could do it again. He didn’t get close of course, and fell around laughing at some of his attempts, in the way that only the man that has the ballast of the All-Ireland medal in the back pocket can. And at the other end of the continuum, the scorching wind of Coyle’s seventy-yard shot still buffets and reverberates around John Maughan.

It’s easy to point a finger at John Maughan now and damn him as inflexible, as callous, as aloof, as tanned. If it’s any relief to him, Maughan can identify his butterfly moment, the seemingly inconsequential moment at the time whose reverberations have got bigger and bigger as the years march on. Reader, who among us can do the same? You may call John Maughan loser, punk, bum and tanned if you must, but remember: there but for the grace of God go we all.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, GAA, football, John Maughan, Colm Coyle, Mayo, Roscommon

Long Day for Short Grass County As Mayo Look to Galway

Mayo 2-14
Kildare 2-8

The more we learn, the less we know. Mayo ate Kildare without salt this afternoon in Newbridge. Kildare went 1-3 to no score up after eight minutes, and it was all Mayo for the following sixty-two. Kildare have seen better days, and the good GAA people of the short grass county, who filled St Conleth’s Park, deserved better than they got. On the basis of today’s game, Kildare will almost certainly be relegated with Laois, and Kieran McGeeney’s management learning curve remains resolutely uphill.

It seems odd to carp about a Mayo team that won by six having been down by six, but it was a strange day, watching the flour bags being cut open. An Spailpín was pleased to note names like Brian Benson and Aiden Campbell listed in the programme on the subs’ bench, and felt sure that they would get a run in the second half, Mayo having taken command by 2-9 to 1-6 after thirty-five minutes. But it was not to be; the game simply petered out to its conclusion, like it was – horrors! – soccer, or something. At first I thought it might have been because nobody deserves to have their noses rubbed in it that more scoring options weren’t considered, but John O’Mahony’s expressed disquiet on the radio afterwards, concerning scoring differences as a league-survival metric, put paid to that theory. It was up to Johnno to let slip Benson et al; the fact that he didn’t is puzzling, to say the least.

The great thing about the league so far, of course, is that Mayo are so very much a work in progress. This safeguards the hopelessly romantic Mayo support from our perpetual temptation to see things as being better than they are. David Clarke is a leader of men in the goals; Kieran Conroy is tightening his grip on the fullback shirt and, in front of him, the half-backs look like Mayo’s best line. The Triple-H of Heaney, Howley and Higgins are as good as any in the country, bar possibly Kerry. Kerry’s half-backs aren’t bad either.

Ronan McGarrity and Tom Parsons are two very stylish footballers, but An Spailpín likes a drop of red diesel in his midfield partnerships; when Pat Harte returned to the lists after Trevor Mortimer picked up an injury twenty minutes into the game, he reminded the travelling support of what the county team had been missing while he was on Stephenite duty.

As noted here before however, upfront remains a problem. It sounds odd to write it about a team that just scored 2-14, but you have to question just how many of the Mayo forwards are what could be termed natural predators, a la Stephen McDonnell, a la Paddy Bradley, a la lots of boys. This afternoon would have been a good time to see if anyone fancied shooting the lights out, as Seanie Johnson did so gloriously last night for Cavan against Cork. But it didn’t happen.

But the road goes ever on; two league points are in the bag, and relegation is staved off further. With that in mind, how wonderful it is to savour the prospect of Galway at Castlebar next Sunday. An Spailpín is expecting it to be played for keeps.

The Galway revival of the past ten years came at Mayo’s expense, but it’s very hard to begrudge it to them at the same time. They will have great players wearing the maroon and white on Sunday and it’s always a bittersweet joy to see them operating at their full potential. Michael Meehan, for instance, has never been outstanding against Mayo and if he catches fire on Sunday it will nevertheless be a treat to see it, even if the fact that it’s Mayo getting the hiding adds a certain pathos.

One of the many wonderful features of GAA life is respect for other teams, and it’s an important matter of GAA etiquette that, on meeting other counties, one is able to praise the stars of the other side. On the pitch, readers will remember Dermot Earley being chaired around the Hyde by Willie Joe Padden and Eugene Lavin on the last day of Earley’s twenty-year career, or the impossible heroism of Offaly four years later when, with hearts shattered beyond despair, they pulled themselves together to give Antrim a guard of honour in 1989.

So much of what we do in following teams is a privilege. For your correspondent, it was a privilege to see Kildare’s John Doyle today, just as it was a privilege to see Cavan’s immortal Dermot McCabe last summer at Castlebar. Recent events sometimes cloud our perspectives on these matters. I hugely look forward to Galway’s visit on Sunday.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, sport, GAA, football, Mayo, Kidare, Galway,

Parting Is Such Tweet Sorrow...

An Spailpín Fánach is having trouble with a bird.

Like his friend An Tomaltach, An Spailpín Fánach is no greater lover of housework. However, as with choosing the next captain of the Irish soccer team, it has to be done and so, with a heavy heart, Easter Saturday saw your correspondent mopping furiously, while all the time becoming aware of a certain odour.

Gentlemen are not fastidious as ladies are. It is entirely possible that, somewhere in a dark corner of a gentleman’s chambers there may exist many foul items and apparatus. But An Spailpín isn’t that bad in this respect, and had he opened an abattoir or slaughterhouse somewhere on the premises he would have damned well remembered it. And still the stench pervaded.

Perhaps our friend rattus rattus, the creature that follows man in every step he takes, was visiting in the attic, and while there, expired, gasping his last? The corpse could now be doing what corpses do, and returning to dust as ordained by the Big Man. Opening the Stira trapdoor, braced for the matted and rotting remains of a big hairy rat falling on my head, took a certain stiffening of the sinews; when none emerged, and an exploration of the attic found nothing, it was time to think again.

It was then that I noticed the fireplace.

I approached. The stench got stronger. I retreated, and the smell lessened. I drew four conclusions.

1. There is something in my chimney.


2. It is dead and decaying.


3. I haven’t a bog how to get it out of there.


4. My dear Jesus but it stinks.

This made for an unhappy bank holiday weekend. Reader, if you desire to spread laughter in the world, ring the chimney sweeping community and see if they’ll come out in an emergency. Their merry laughter filled my ears, just as the rotting smell of former birdie filled my nostrils. Your Spailpín was as fánach as he’s ever been on Saturday, travelling from Spar to Spar, stocking up on air freshener and scented candles.

Tonight, a stand-off exists in this charnel house. Upstairs, the fetid ball of feathers rules supreme. A scented candle burns before his chimney like some pagan lamp somewhere in the Grecian archipelago two thousand years ago, in honour of Pluto, Lord of the Underworld. And downstairs, bottle of sense-neutralising whiskey at the ready, upper lip coated with Vaseline a la Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, sitting at the laptop, your correspondent, An Spailpín Fánach.

The sweep comes tomorrow to remove the remains, and to seal the tomb so that if any other bird feels the need to expire he can do it in the only place fitting for his kind – the starring role in a snackbox springs more or less immediately to mind. In the meantime, we sit out the night together, my rotting house guest and I. At least John Cleese, in one of his many moments of immortality, was able to bang his dead parrot off the table. If I tried that with himself upstairs, he’d probably splatter all over the damned counter, and Michael Palin is too nice a man to deserve that rough treatment.

The Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus wrote a very famous elegy on the death of his girlfriend’s sparrow some two thousand years ago. “Meae puellae flendo turgiduli rubent ocelli,” wrote the poet, “my girl’s little eyes are red with weeping.”

Yeah. If she thought that was bad, Lesbia should have gone a few days with the sparrow rotting next to her, and see what she made of them onions. She would have gone out and got a bloody dog instead.





Technorati Tags: Dublin, society, chimney, chimeny sweep, Catullus, dead bird, dead parrot

Voices on the Radio

Jenny Huston was filling in for Gerry Ryan on the mid-morning show on 2FM yesterday. If An Spailpín had his way, La Huston would be on the radio all the time, and Cap’n Gerry would be given his papers.

It could simply be great age of course, but right now Irish music radio seems very grating to An Spailpín Fánach. It is generally my practice to plug in the iPod once I cross the threshold of any Spar or Centra in the city as I attempt to drown out the breakfast shows with Santa Esmeralda’s Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, or something similarly sonic. Trading off hearing for sanity, you know. In such a broadcast environment, hearing Jenny Huston’s Saturday evening show, The Annex, is something of a faith restorer.

The blast-from-the-past format isn’t new of course – Larry Gogan had a golden hour that went back to the time of the Tuatha De Danann I believe – but Jenny Huston has what Larry never had, and that’s cred. Larry played the soundtrack to all our childhoods, but he was about as cool as school. Jenny Huston, on the other hand, with that beautiful Canadian timbre in her voice and her sheer joy in spinning the discs, carries her to another level. Listening to the show when there’s a guest presenter just isn’t the same. It’s not coming from the heart without La Huston. A little more variety in the playlists – Jailbreak or Whole Lotta Rosie for the AC/DC slot instead of the perpetual Thunderstruck would be nice – but the show remains a jewel.

I’m told that Jenny also does an Indie show on 2FM but I wouldn’t be too bothered about that. Scrawny looking urchins from Salford feeding back their guitars or rich American college kids sharing their angst with the world before getting a good job with JP Morgan? Not this time, thank you. An Spailpín’s tastes run more towards the classical at this stage, and he’s happy to have Lyric FM’s Evelyn Grant as his tour guide for that.

Evelyn Grant’s musical credentials are strong, but the great thing about her show, as with Jenny Huston’s, is that Evelyn Grant really loves playing these tunes and sharing the music. With Evelyn Grant everything is lovely, just lovely. This can lead her into tricky waters of course – one Christmas she played a request for the prison officers in one of our leading jails and decided to throw in the guests as well, as part of the Christmas spirit. As she was talking though, she realised that if you’re doing seven to ten years listening to the old triangle going jingle jangle it’ll take more than Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 in E Minor to cheer you up.

But no matter – Grant is hopelessly in love with the music, and the love is catching. She enjoys playing this piece from a recent French movie called Les Choristes, The Choir, which is exactly her world. Listening to her, you realise that yes, there is such a thing as culture and yes, it is being passed on. Hurrah for Evelyn Grant.

An Spailpín developed his love for radio at night, in the 1980s, when Mark Cagney did the Night Train on Radio 2 as was. The Waterboys’ Spirit, The Doors’ Riders of the Storm, Freddie White singing Guy Clark’s Desperadoes Waiting on a Train – all signature moments. Long gone now, of course, but An Spailpín has great time for Cagney’s fellow Corkonian Lillian Smith, currently doing the weekend Late Date. Lillian Smith has wide and varied tastes – a few months ago she played The Buddy Rich Big Band version of The Beatles’ Norwegian Wood, and it was transcendent.

John Spillane, also from the beautiful city, makes the most of Raidió na Gaeltachta’s new relaxed policy on songs in English after the watershed, and has a wonderful show on Sunday nights. He delights in playing a bizarre recording of one Reverend AW Nix, telling us about who’ll be travelling on the Black Diamond Express Train to Hell. After three minutes, a miserable Spailpín realised not only is he on board, but he could fill at least half a carriage. Check An Speal out sometime you get a chance. It might even do your Gaeilge no harm.






Technorati Tags: Ireland, culture, radio, music, Jenny Huston, Evelyn Grant, Lillian Smith, John Spillane

Finglas in Flames, Nation in Denial

The St Patrick’s Night festivities in Finglas, where gangs of feral youths saw fit to commemorate the arrival of Christianity to this island by burning out cars and rioting con brio, are covered in all this morning’s newspapers. An Spailpín couldn’t help but smile to himself when RTÉ’s Valerie Cox, presenting It Says in the Papers on Morning Ireland, reported that The Sun's editorial is thundering this morning that the good citizens of Finglas, rightly disgusted by this behaviour, are considering moving somewhere else.

Ms Cox didn’t have space to say where these good citizens are expected to move to, but for anybody who doesn’t take The Sun of a morning, like An Spailpín, I believe that Shangri-La is quite nice this time of year. Tír na nÓg has been popular for some time. For those thinking of a rural idyll, Percy French had great faith in many places on this green isle, such as Drumcolliher, Ballyjamesduff and those Mountains of Mourne that sweep down to the sea. Or, for those sick of rain, the Beach Boys had great faith in a spot called Kokomo back in the eighties, which is a bar somewhere in the Florida Keys I believe. Very specific bucks, those Beach Boys.

One of the foundation myths of the Irish property boom is that one can pogo from area code to area code, until eventually reaching the prefect peace of a Georgian domicile in leafy Dublin 4. Well, if any of those citizens of Finglas are thinking of making the move from Dublin 11 to Dublin 4 – and it certainly seems like a good idea right now – they’ll have to find someone to buy the current house first. Someone that doesn’t read the papers, or listen to the news, and who thinks that their Hyundai Tuscon will be exempt from the periodic torching that is part of the local charm.

The Examiner’s editorial is on the button this morning. The government has been talking about “zero tolerance” for eleven years. The ASBO was introduced last year, but not one has been issued. And here’s the kernel of the matter: “This is not just antisocial behaviour, it is serious criminal behaviour and should be regarded as such.”

And it is clearly not regarded as such. The Irish Times reports that Fine Gael, with the flair for practical politics that has made the party such a viable alternative Government, has called for the introduction of “special night courts” to deal with the problem.

Special night courts. So you haul a guy with twenty prior convictions up before the Beak and now he has twenty-one convictions. Does anybody really think that’s going to make a difference?

The tireless campaigner Father Peter McVerry is quoted in that same report in the Irish Times as saying that “nobody seems to have any answers to try and deal with this particular problem.”

An Spailpín Fánach has two suggestions.

The first suggestion is that if someone is indulging in criminal acts, he or she is imprisoned, and kept there until they stop. This is seems simple enough, but with fellas running around with multiple criminal convictions, putting criminals in prison and keeping them there is something we as a society don't seem to quite understand.

On the broader social issue, Carl O’Brien is correct in today’s Irish Times in saying that sustained funding and early intervention can alleviate the problem. But An Spailpín is not sure that we as a people fully realise what early intervention means. If you’re dealing with parents who think it’s ok to have ten-year-olds drunk and rioting then a finger-wagging from a social worker or a civvy-wearing padre isn’t going to do it. Besides, at ten it’s too late; those young fellas' only hope is to join the British Army, and hope that the Queen can do for them what their own State has failed, and give them some purpose in life. The British Army has been doing it for their forebears for hundreds of years, after all.

And for the younger children, for whom there is still hope, if you are going to intervene that means that you have to take children off their parents, who are clearly a bad influence of them. You have to write off one generation in order to save the next. This means you have to build many orphanages, and staff them with trained professionals. And if you’re going to do all that, you have to write big, fat cheques and raise taxes in order to pay those professionals. You may say foster homes are better than orphanages; fair enough. The problem is that the cheque for the orphanages will be big enough; there’s no way there’s enough money to pay for better care. There just isn’t. This is the price we pay for long-fingering the problem for so long. Shame on us all.

Someone in the Irish political landscape will want to be come down with a very virulent case of vision before any of this happens, of course. An Spailpín shan’t be holding his breath.





Technorati Tags: Ireland, Dublin, hooliganism, anti-social behaviour, crime, Finglas, St Patrick's Day

Irish Movies on St Patrick's Day

An Spailpín notes with interest that RTÉ, in their wisdom, have decided to show Into the West as their St Patrick’s Day feature. Ellen Barkin makes for a rather glamorous travelling lady, although Gabriel Byrne is mistaken if he thinks the coveted title of King of the Travellers is won as easily as rubbing one’s face with ashes. The face of the regent generally suffers a greater buffeting for that signal honour.

During An Spailpín’s urchinhood, of course, the Irish movie was de riguer on TV for the National Holiday. It seems strange now to be without them, not least as Irish movies are now like midges on the mountain, whereas back in the 1970s and 80s they were much rarer creatures. So rare, in fact, that they were Irish only in nominal theme, being made in either England or the US with a very stage-Irish sensibility. In the 1960s Disney made a movie called The Fighting Prince of Donegal, a biopic of Red Hugh O’Donnell, “a reckless young rebel who rocks an empire.” Aodh Rua himself was played by Peter McEnery, a matinee idol of the day whose hair was dyed sufficiently red to make a carrot look like a parsnip if placed next to his blazing barnet.

The Flight of the Doves was made in 1971, and was a staple of St Patrick’s Day for many years. Or so it seems in retrospect; don’t forget, RTÉ has been committed to recycling long before anyone knew what a greenhouse gas was. The Flight of the Doves was one of those stories that are especially terrifying for children, as it featured children who had to run away from a guardian who was all set to do them in. The fact that the malevolent guardian was played by Ron Moody, Fagin in Oliver!, made it all the more worrying to the infant Spailpín. Not as worrying, however, as the song sung by Rabbi Noel Purcell in the movie, called “You Don’t Have to be Irish to be Irish.” Even at six years old, your correspondent was a hopeless pedant.

One magical St Patrick’s Day in the 1980s RTÉ decided to treat the nation to a whole Barry Fitzgerald season. They gave us Going My Way, of course, and The Quiet Man (still An Spailpín’s favourite Irish movie ever), and even a edgy noir-ish policer called The Naked City. The naked city in question is New York, not technically in the jurisdiction of course, but once it had Barry Fitz in it that was good enough for us.

But of that Barry Fitzgerland season, the picture that’s stuck most firmly in An Spailpín’s mind is a movie that I have not seen or heard of since, and that an hour’s furious googling is only generating some very sparse results indeed. It’s a movie called, variously, Happy Ever After, Tonight’s the Night or O’Leary’s Night, and it’s a black sort of farce. It’s about a village not one hundred miles away from the one in the Quiet Man where the local squire dies and his only living relation, a distant cousin, arrives over from England to take over the place. The thing is that while General O’Leary is down with the locals, drinking the hard drop and not being too bothered about the rent, the young lad is an utter swine and starts evicting people and going Lord-of-the-Manor straight away. The locals decide there’s nothing else to be done except to bump him off, and complications ensure.

One of the reasons the movie has stayed with me so long is because it stars one of my favourite actors, the great David Niven, as the squireen, Jasper O’Leary. Niven makes no mention of the movie that I can recall in either of his volumes of auto-biography, so it’s fair to presume that he hated it. And the reason why, perhaps, is because Niven is cast against type as a cad. To An Spailpín’s mind though, this is what makes the picture so fascinating, like Henry Fonda as Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West. I wonder if it really was good, or is it just memory playing tricks, as memory does?

It’s fashionable now of course to sneer at The Quiet Man and the Paddy-whackery school. Well, if sitting down this evening to a TV version of Eugene O’Brien’s play Eden (a “trudge through domestic purgatory [addressing] such discomfiting issues as impotence and pervasive alcoholism,” according to the Village Voice. How jolly) is your cup of tea then go for it, but An Spailpín will pass this time, thanks. I’m off to the end of the rainbow where the crocks of gold are stashed by the fairy peoples, where you must be careful of red-haired women, where your mind is addled by strong mountain poitín, and where even the hardest of men, even Jamesh Bond himshelf, can’t help but break into song, in light lyric tenor. Happy St Patrick’s Day, from 007 and An Spailpín Fánach.







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