Miriam Lord's Week

Ó Cuív ready to lead soldiers of destiny to safety

LABHRÁS FOR the Áras may have provided some light relief for the masses, but few are laughing in Fianna Fáil.

The party is in disarray, riven by internal dissent and rudderless. The ructions at Thursday’s parliamentary party meeting included an open disagreement between leader Micheál Martin and his deputy, Éamon Ó Cuív.

There is a lot more to that spat than meets the eye.

The situation is set to deteriorate further next week when Ó Cuív, the grandson of party founder Éamon de Valera, puts on the record for the first time that he is prepared to leave the fold and set up a breakaway party.

The word around Leinster House yesterday was that “Young Dev” has indulged in some frank talk in the final part of Ursula Halligan’s riveting documentary series The Rise and Fall of Fianna Fáil.

Party insiders were whispering that the former minister will pour petrol on the fire by telling TV3’s political editor that the organisation is so damaged by perceived links to corruption that a new party with a new name may be the only solution.

Grassroots favourite Ó Cuív says this party would cleave to the high ideals of Fianna Fáil’s founding fathers.

Angered over the events that brought the party to meltdown, Dev Óg wonders if it can ever shake off its image as the party of big business.

We hear Micheál Martin will rebut any talk that the party is toxic, but if the rumours about the programme are

true, his second in command is clearly not of the same opinion.

Obviously Ó Cuív would dearly love the party of his forefathers to survive, but he isn’t sure this is possible. Tellingly, he is reminding people that, when he had no other option, De Valera abandoned Sinn Féin in 1926 and established Fianna Fáil.

Colleagues report that he is not happy with the current state of affairs. He feels the core Fianna Fáil membership still has a huge contribution to make to Irish society, but to do this, they may, regretfully, have to look for a new way forward.

Dev’s grandson will deliver a major jolt to the leadership when he says this on Monday night.

To him, the party name is not important. What has always been important to Ó Cuív – and his pedigree is unimpeachable – is the continuation of the Fianna Fáil view of life, its decency and ideals, even if this has to be accomplished under a new name.

Could Young Dev’s verdict be the benediction the lost Soldiers of Destiny need to find a new promised land?

Can Micheál Martin convince them to stay put?

The parliamentary party meets again on Tuesday – the day after the documentary is aired – to try and agree some semblance of a strategy for the presidential election.

Thanks to Ó Cuív, the atmosphere will be more strained than ever.

Never mind Sideshow Labhrás. Fianna Fáil is teetering dangerously on the brink.

Quivering Bull set to stamp foot in TV3's documentary

MORE NUGGETS from the TV3 documentary come dripping from the quivering lips of another vanquished Fianna Fáil giant, former ceann comhairle John O’Donoghue.

The Bull O’Donoghue has been licking his wounds in splendid isolation in south Kerry since his humiliating fall from grace in the last government.

But, offered an opportunity by broadcaster Halligan to put his side of the story, we hear The Bull has come out fighting.

He still says he was horribly wronged and the victim of a major injustice when he had to step down as ceann comhairle over his huge expenses bills and large number of foreign trips.

It will be interesting to see if O’Donoghue’s attitude to his nemesis, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, has mellowed. The smart money says it hasn’t. He is unlikely to have forgiven the man who forced his resignation during a dramatic intervention in the Dáil.

Our Kerry sources say that, if anything, his bitterness has deepened towards the man who he believes carried out his political “execution”.

Cowen's version of Anglo events may not have been fiction

WE COULDN’T make it to the recent launch of Simon Carswell’s book Anglo-Republic: Inside the Bank that Broke Ireland”, his rip-roaring tale of what happens when bankers go bad.

The public hasn’t lost its appetite for the Anglo story, as the book shot to the top of the bestseller list when it was published.

Our colleague Simon documents how tensions ran high between taoiseach Brian Cowen and Green Party leader John Gormley when the EU-IMF bailout was being negotiated. Gormley was unhappy with the onerous terms of the arrangement.

“This is the Versailles Treaty and what we need is the Marshall Plan,” he told Cowen in private on the night in November when the deal was agreed.

“Don’t be using language like that,” Cowen responded angrily.

The following day, Cowen’s junior coalition partners came out and demanded an election by the middle of January.

A stickler for language, was Biffo.

Carswell also gives an insight in how the Anglo fat cats, for all their much-vaunted brilliance, were not very good at investing in political capital.

It seems that the Anglo management was poor at making the right connections, even when they were desperately trying to peddle the line that their bank wasn’t going down the tubes.

So while Cowen was routinely lambasted by the opposition for his government’s cosy relationship with the Anglo bosses, this does not appear to have been quite the case.

It was widely perceived that Anglo had strong political connections, but by Irish standards this wasn’t so.

Here’s how one former bank executive delicately put it: “Just because Fianna Fáil was up the ass of developers didn’t mean that Anglo was up there too, close to Fianna Fáil.”

And Cowen’s insistence that his controversial game of golf and dinners with members of the Anglo board were nothing more than pleasant social occasions has also been largely borne out.

“Anglo management did not really know how to work the government channels or politicians to put their case forward,” says Carswell, quoting a source close to the bank who said: “They didn’t have sophisticated public affairs. They didn’t invest time with politicians and public servants. I don’t think there was any cause or effect from that dinner with Brian Cowen.”

Scant consolation for the former taoiseach now, back in Offaly, out of politics and shouting “I told you so”.

Mind you, Bertie Ahern and Seanie Fitz always seemed the best of pals.

Bertie takes to the wheel again to get things moving in the right direction

IT’S NEVER too late to learn and sprightly Bertie Ahern is a credit to all 60-year-olds with his get-up-and-go attitude.

Word reaches us via an eagle-eyed correspondent that he is back driving again after decades of being chauffeured around at taxpayers’ expense.

Our impeccable source saw the former taoiseach driving down Gracepark Road in Drumcondra in a white, or possibly silver, Toyota Corolla. Newish model.

“There was a blonde woman in the passenger seat with L plates front and back (on the car, not the woman.) He looked very pleased with himself.” We don’t know if the Bert drove himself to his big birthday party in Croke Park last weekend. He may well have, as nobody saw him enter the stadium. But it’s unlikely, as he would have been having a few pints at the do.

The 150 or so guests were mainly family, old friends, neighbours and former staff members and Garda drivers. Bertie’s daughters Georgina and Cecilia laid on a great night for their dad.

There was a buffet (beef and sole) “nothing fancy” as one of the guests put it and a pay bar. Everyone sang “happy birthday” to the Bertie boy and son-in-law Nicky Byrne brought the house down with his version of I’m a Believer. “It was a very family orientated night and Bertie joked in his speech that, contrary to popular belief, there weren’t 83,000 people in Croker for his party. He was relaxed and in great form and looking forward to tomorrow’s big match. That would be one of the best presents of all for him.

“And nobody mentioned the war.”

Bertie won’t be relishing the imminent publication of the Mahon report. And speaking of Fianna Fáil leaders and tribunals of investigation, a former Moriarty witness has just been appointed as an assistant to Senator Martin McAleese.

We understand that the very capable Catherine Butler, who was Charlie Haughey’s personal assistant and one of his special advisers when he was taoiseach, recently started in her new job with Mr McAleese.

Over a decade ago, Ms Butler was a high-profile witness during the Haughey phase of the Moriarty tribunal when the nation was agog at the evidence of his Charvet shirts and dinners at Le Coq Hardi.

Caprani bash for enthusiasts of vulgar verse and Dubs

MODESTY SHOULD forbid us from mentioning the fact that this page was toast of the town on Thursday night when a huge crowd gathered at the Teachers’ Club to celebrate the republishing of Vinny Caprani’s Rowdy Rhymes and Rec-im-itations.

But it doesn’t.

Vinny, former president of the Irish Print Union, went down a storm at the launch of the Larkin Hedge School last year and after the reprint of his notorious poem The Ballad of Gough, about the attempt in 1957 to blow up the Sir Hubert Gough statue in the Phoenix Park, Fergal Tobin, publishing director of Gill Macmillan, contacted Vinny with an offer to republish the book, which had long been out of print.

It was launched by Séamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists who, in an apparent compliment, described this columnist as “a true Dub with a deep appreciation of vulgar verse”.

The attendance included Ulick O’Connor who, in his biography of Brendan Behan, mistakenly attributed The Ballad of Gough to Behan. Behan, according to Caprani, did not actually claim authorship “but neither did he deny it”.

Vinny was a Gough denier for years because he did not want to claim credit for the vulgar language contained in the poem and only outed himself as author to his father, a Moore Street barber, not long before his death.

The launch was marked with a special session of the Clé club and Vinny stole the show. There were many calls for his parody on the Rose of Tralee: The Hoor from Hackballs Cross. On one occasion at an Ictu social gathering this poem landed Caprani in hot water when he was loudly heckled by an indignant feminist, who objected to the term “hoor”. “Grand,” conceded Vinny, “we’ll call her the heckler from Hackballs Cross”.

Given the week that’s in it there was a strong emphasis on sport: Oh we’re the Dubs, the rub-a-dub Dubs Sometimes called “Jackeen” We’re Prod and Papist all in one, We’re Orange, White and Green! Not King nor Pope, despair or hope Can make us bend the knee From Liffeyside we draw our pride Of Norseman pedigree. Stick that in your pipe Jimmy Deenihan! The Minister, who won a bucket of All-Ireland medals in the playing days with Kerry, was spotted walking the corridors on Thursday with the county jersey.

It was pointed out to him by scandalised bystanders that Cabinet colleague Leo Varadkar was told the previous day by the authorities to remove a Dublin flag from his car. Jimmy shrugged. “I’d like to see them try take that jersey from me, with my record in defence.” Then he went outside and joined Leo, who had a Dublin jersey, and they had their photos taken together. “A win for Kerry would be good for Kerry. A win for Dublin would be good for Ireland,” said Deenihan.

Adams fishing in troubled waters

AT THE Sinn Féin news conference in the appropriately named Adam Suite of the Shelbourne Hotel, party leader Gerry Adams made the following disparaging and rather long-winded remark on the presidential election: “We need someone who won’t just feed us poetry but will actually, in a very, very positive way, face into the future because he or she trusts the people of Ireland, cherishes the people of Ireland and wants to see a real republic across the island and a harmonised, reconciled people.”

All those present assumed this was a dig at Labour’s Michael D. Higgins, who is in regular contact with the Muse, but reliable sources close to the inner circle of republicanism tell us the Bearded One was, in fact, having a go at the Taoiseach, who was seen reading a Séamus Heaney poem at the 9/11 commemoration ceremony last Sunday.

But no doubt Sinn Féin will have a go at Michael D also between now and election day. But they’ll be staying away from any snide remarks about poetry, given their own candidate is a published poet. He is particularly fond of writing about trout.