THERE ARE images from that televised week in the Dáil, and the radio programmes that swept up the debris, that will forever bear witness to the moment when a page of history turned. First among them must be the sudden switching from the Dáil to Maynooth, as RTE called on Cardinal Cahal Daly to account for himself.

Bear in mind that viewers at home had not been told of the rumours that engulfed the Dáil, during that famous hour when Dick and Albert agreed to an adjournment and went off to have top-level talks. Something deadly serious was up, political correspondent Geraldine Kennedy said to Pat Kenny on the radio. An impeachment of Harry Whelehan, perhaps. Kenny spluttered, gasped, and said it could not be so. A series of constitutional experts came quickly on air to agree with him.

If it could not be so, mere listeners told themselves, then it must be something else. Every mind in the country turned to the Catholic Church. What is significant is that we thought THIS could certainly be so – that the Holy Men were capable of nefarious activity – and no commentator came on television or radio to say “Rubbish.”

Then Cardinal Daly appeared onscreen to say there was no truth in the rumour that he had tried to prevent the extradition of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth. Younger Hot Press readers, unaware of ancient history, cannot know that all of ten years ago, such a thought would not have been entertained about Ireland’s Number One Holy Man, never mind the translation of such a thought into a public formal question. It would have been, and was when it finally happened, like asking Jesus to account for his movements.

It was bliss.

The cup overflowed when the RTE reporter put a supplementary question to the Cardinal. Could he say that his Bishops had not interfered with the extradition case? The Cardinal said he could not give such an assurance. He blenched, blanked and nearly fainted onscreen. Viewers assured themselves that there must be a Bishop in it somewhere.

Mary Harney confirmed that senior Fianna Fail sources had indeed been saying such around Leinster House. What she did not say, her nerve failing her, was that the TDs of other parties accepted that this could indeed be true. In the words of Pat Rabbitte, there was a belief that a document existed which, were it revealed, would “rock the foundations of the state.”

FULL TERM

There was no such document, as we know, but we also knew that there couldn’t have been anyway, because the Catholic Church did not come down in the last shower. It does not leave written evidence around. What we wanted to know was whether there had been a clerical nudge and wink in the direction of the Attorney General’s office? If not in this case, then in some other? Whether that ever happened or not, whether it could be proved or not, is beside the point. A page of history audibly turned in the wake of that week in the Dáil when every punter in the country observed sagely that the Catholic Church in Ireland was capable of such interference.

The country’s other monolith, Fianna Fail, flexed its muscles against that same Church when push came to shove over who really rules Ireland. A question was raised during new leader Bertie Ahern’s first press conference about his personal life. How would the country cope with the fact that this married man’s public and official consort was a woman who was not his wife? He had a “girl-friend”, Bertie acknowledged, and the assembled red-necks of his party growled in full-throated approval.

Rural Ireland declared on Saturday, November 26th, 1994 that it’s alright for a married fellow to have a girlfriend as well as a wife. That has always been so, of course, but OFFICIALLY so? Jesus wept. Note in passing that the phrase “girl-friend” takes the harm out of it. Can’t a man be friendly with a female other than his wife, for Chrissake?

Thus, as even more recent events in relation to the “substantive issue of abortion” show, Fianna Fáil men want to have their bread with jam on it and, sordidly, Labour in pursuit of power has endorsed their desires: whatever about the number of women per man they feel they’re officially entitled to, there shall be no change in the fundamental male stance that every female in the country who comes into sexual contact with a man must, if she is impregnated, bring the pregnancy to full term. It doesn’t matter whether she becomes pregnant by consent, accident, or through rape, incest or child sexual abuse. There shall be no abortion here under any circumstances, Labour and Fianna Fáil have agreed. Any female who disagrees can take the boat.

Everything you suspected, every vile rumour you thought could have been true, is indeed true. Pigs are flying over the Dáil.