Themselves Alone

I dreamt about the election last night; more specifically, I dreamt about Sinn Fein’s performance in it. I know, I know. In service to you lot, I’m even blogging in my sleep. Not even your mothers love you as much as I do.

It may have come from the chat I had with Articulately Subversive Brother last night (I have an Excitably Subversive brother too, whom I tend to dub Nearest Brother, because he’s a mere ten years older than me. Someone once thought he was my dad. The larfs!). We, like the conscientious little fuckers we are, turned to talk of the Big E, the decider of our country’s not-too-distant-future, and we went through the various party options like the dismissive, opinionated whingebags we also are.

We got to Sinn Fein eventually. We were chomping at the bit to do so, seeing as they’re the only interesting party.

“It moulds up my sandwiches and soils my breeches,” says Articulately Subversive Brother, “that we’ve spent the last twenty years trying to get Sinn Fein into government in the North, only for our representatives down here to turn around and reject any notion of joining them in government down here.”

And y’know, he’s hit the nail into the hangover, there. It’s true. What was Bertie Ahern whispering to Ian Paisley when we eventually got Dr. No to sit down at the same table as Grizzly Adams? Rather you than me, old chap?

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, my mother might say, and while I don’t know what she’s on about because I’ve never been served goose in my life, unless chicken leftovers are a viable substitute, I must say that we are a bunch of hypocritical arses. When it comes to the North, we cry, “Let them eat crow!” while we down here feast on brown envelopes in a mock-socialist soup (incidentally, I firmly believe that Bertie Ahern got his words mangled – it runs in the family – and said he was a socialist when he clearly meant socialite. Have I said that to you before?). The other parties ask us to say no to Sinn Fein; “We’re the real republicans” say Fianna Fail, while the PDs are reduced to a very thick consistency and a cry of “Why would you want to vote for gun-toting hippies, anyway? Fucking provisional branch of the flower children, they are. Social housing my arse!”. But… and here comes the genuine brow-furrowing from your political corr(d)espondent…
Sinn Fein are a young party, and a growing party, and while they’re not ready for government yet, they very well may be in a decade or so. So when, if ever, should we accept their background as a party of violent protest? When should we move on? A sizeable portion of the population has done so already, if Sinn Fein’s opinion poll results are to be believed. And not all of them are rebel song singing freaks from rural Cork, either.