Follow the leader

I have Jimmy Gahan on the ten o’clock news on South East Radio to thank for the great news that our beloved leader Bertie Ahern (praise be His name) was to spend five whole hours (that’s 300 minutes, you can calculate it in Euros yourself) in Wexford later that very day, just eight days before the election.

This was certainly worth getting up for. After all, this is the man who was a great friend of Charlie Haughey, Ray Burke and Liam Lawlor and rarely had a bad word to say about any of them. So, sufficiently innoculated against all political diseases, I made my way to Redmond Square where He was due to meet his flock at 12.15 midday. When I arrive at the Square at the appointed hour there’s barely enough people to form a cabinet. A lone piper is playing ‘The Rising Of The Moon’, perhaps expecting Him to be very late.

A Fianna Fail enthusiast is trying to give people flags to wave, but with mixed success. She’d have done better business with the custard pies. Spotting a well-liveried Fianna Fail van parked not only on a double-yellow line but on a dangerous corner outside Dunnes Stores, I am overwhelmed by a sense of civic duty and ask a youthful Garda if he’s going to give them a parking ticket. He shrugs and mysteriously replies “Sure they’d break your heart”, before moving off.

When other people try to park along the same stretch I helpfully tell them to go ahead until what looks like an officer of a senior persuasion heads menacingly in my direction. Fortunately he is distracted by the only young FF person in sight. In answer to a different traffic problem, she optimistically advises the cop, “I don’t care where he gets out so long as he gets out into a crowd”.

When He arrives the party cheerleaders do their best to raise a welcome, as He starts shaking hands with everybody at least once. He passes a gaggle of giggling girls and exchanges the sort of inane pleasantries politicians specialise in. The girls’ giggling goes into overdrive.

He then decides to pop into Dunnes Stores, and looks uneasy for a sec, perhaps not sure where to find the brown envelope department. But He quickly recovers and amidst lots of kissing and hugging (and that’s just the men) heads back out again.

In a moment of uncharacteristic bravery I stand beside a festooned party animal who, mistaking me for an innocent bystander, asks, “Will you be givin’ us your vote yourself, like?”. When I subtly tell him I won’t even be giving them my last vote he winces and turns away. And so we’re off to the toy department.

Back on the street there’s a slightly bigger crowd, like fifty, and when He re-emerges into the light we all set off after him down Main Street. When we get as far as the Rainbow Wholefoods shop, its tempting array of health foods reminds that there must be something more useful to be doing with my life than watching Our Leader say “Howeeyizlads” every five seconds, so I beat a retreat to Aspels Pub a safe distance up the town. There I relax with a pint and the Guardian crossword until, holy shit, He and they all arrive in the pub, and, what’s worse, I can feel a speech coming on.

With FF fighting to get a third seat through Tony Dempsey, he’s the man of the moment. He starts talking about Bertie Ahern as “the man who put an end to violence and corruption and the gun in Irish politics”. Yes, a grown man said that, and I think it’s worth reading again and I have it on tape if you want to hear it.

Then He speaks, apologising for spoiling our lunch, but not offering to pay for it. He sings the praises of the two incumbent FF TDs Hugh Byrne and John Browne, whose presence in the Dail has coincided with Wexford becoming one of the worst economic black spots in the country. So we should have the same two again, plus another one just like them. Makes perfect sense to me.

Speech spoken, He moves around the pub squashing flesh. When he comes upon an extremely well-fed American guy He immediately tells him, “I was at Ground Zero just days after it happened”. Before the American can say anything he is fed by the Party helpers as television fodder to TV3. Unable to contain his excitement, he uses his mobile phone to call a friend and advise him/her to get the VCR ready because he’s going to be on “the Channel 3 news”.

More photos, more hand shakes, more bullshit. And then He’s gone. Wexford deserves better than this. Maybe it’s time for another rebellion?