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Miriam Lord’s Week: Enda Kenny welcomes ‘our Nancy’ Pelosi with a baffling anecdote

Former US house speaker is on a visit to the ould sod - yes, she can claim to be Irish, thanks to the ‘grandchildren’ rule

Paul Pelosi, Sabina Higgins, President Michael D Higgins, Nancy Pelosi and US ambassador Claire Cronin at Áras an Uachtaráin on Sunday. Photograph: Maxwells/PA Wire

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Miriam Lord
Sat Apr 27 2024 - 06:00

Nancy Pelosi was in town earlier this week to pick up a clatter of gongs and an honorary doctorate.

The former speaker of the US House of Representatives had a busy schedule which included lunch in Leinster House hosted by Senator Fiona O’Loughlin, chair of the Oireachtas Women’s Caucus, and a gala dinner in UCD graced by two former taoisigh.

Nancy is no stranger to Ireland. She addressed the Dáil in 2017 at one of the many events marking its centenary. Bono was among her guests in the Distinguished Visitors’ Gallery.

She was presented with this year’s Peter Sutherland Leadership Award at Monday night’s black-tie dinner in the O’Reilly Hall. Past recipients include European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, former US Treasury secretary Hank Paulson and former Italian PM Mario Draghi.

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Bertie Ahern was among the guests while Enda Kenny presented the award.

His introductory remarks were classic Enda.

We hope Nancy didn’t come away from the evening thinking Ireland’s business movers and shakers need urgent treatment for nits, because they were all still scratching their heads trying to make sense of Enda’s baffling opening anecdote when she took to the microphone to deliver her acceptance speech.

He began with an opening line which may or may not have been a cheeky reference to next year’s presidential election, because it was clearly aimed at Bertie.

“Speaker Emerita, Ministers, ambassadors, former taoiseach ...” he drawled, emphasising the last two words before pointedly adding “former everybody else and future everybody else”.

The audience laughed.

Whereupon Enda declared: “It’s all been said.”

Wha? He was only starting.

At this point, the former taoiseach paused for dramatic effect before launching into his anecdote. He spoke slowly, with the look of a man who knows he is telling a good old yarn and is gently reeling in his open-mouthed audience as they await the punchline.

“In the village where I grew up at home, a brother and sister lived in the same house and she used to do the driving.

“And if you met the brother in the local town on a Saturday he wouldn’t say, ‘Any news?’ He would say, ‘Did you see our Nancy?’”

Yes. And?

Enda continued, head turned sideways, eyes narrowed, half-smile, about to drop the killer line.

“So you mightn’t have much kindred here with your grandchildren in Co Wicklow. Believe me, you’ve got a lot of supporters in this country, Nancy.”

And, eh, that was it.

He launched into his speech, paying glowing tribute to the former speaker. She would later clear up one mystery from the baffling “did you see our Nancy?” unfinished anecdote, telling guests that while she may not have Irish grandparents like other famous US politicians, “I do have three Irish grandchildren: Leo, Sean and Ryan. Is that Irish enough for you?”

They were baptised in Kilquade in Co Wicklow. When she met Taoiseach Simon Harris earlier in the day, he told her he was married in that same church.

“I have some Irish bona fides and I just wanted to establish that,” she said. Her daughter Jacqueline and son-in-law Michael T Kenneally were also at the dinner.

Nancy was thrilled with the big build-up from Enda. She was also delighted to see another iar-taoiseach at the do.

“Bertie Ay-hern! Where are you, Bertie? Give us a wave!”

No better man. Sure he needs the practice anyway for the election campaign.

Dinner lady

The former speaker turned 84 last month.

“I can’t get over how well she looks,” said more than one woman in Leinster House when she visited. It’s fair to say that the immaculately presented Pelosi, who is a bundle of energy, was under intense scrutiny.

“I gave her a hug and she’s all muscle. She must work out for hours,” declared an admirer who met her in the restaurant.

There was tremendous interest in what Nancy ate.

Apparently she had the fish and the pasta and then had an affogato afterwards. It had ice-cream made with Glenowen liquor and hot espresso and there was a splash of Baileys over it too. And, according to our spy, she ate everything. “Cleared her plate.”

This was a source of wonderment. It also provoked feelings from mild disappointment to deep resentment among those who had been comforting themselves with the notion that Nancy survives on lettuce leaves and black coffee.

And then she horsed into a big dinner that night in UCD.

St Tola goat cheese bar, truffle honey, sliced mange tout, confit lemon and crunchy hazelnut starter.

Prime Irish Hereford fillet of beef, dauphinoise potato, Portobello mushroom, asparagus, smoked vine cherry tomato, and a Burgundy jus to follow.

And chocolate ganache with raspberry coulis, Chantilly cream and shortbread biscuit to take the edge off for afters.

So that’s two dinners for Nancy as lunch in Leinster House is really dinner the middle of the day.

Some woman.

Enda Kenny will be telling everyone: I met a woman who had two dinners ...

Tánaiste’s toilet breakout

The media representatives and diplomatic types accompanying the Tánaiste on his two-day trip to the Middle East this week were exhausted trying to keep up with him as he completed a tight list of engagements.

On Monday evening, Micheál Martin had to rush from the EU Foreign Affairs Council to the private jet terminal at Luxembourg airport to catch a plane to Cairo. As the group waited to board, the health-conscious Tánaiste used most of his small amount of waiting time to build up his daily steps by running a few laps around the place.

But his brief sojourn at the airport was not entirely incident-free, according to fascinated witnesses who reported seeing him “shooting like a bullet out of the toilets like he’d just seen a ghost”.

On further investigation, it appears that Micheál ambled into the loo to wash his hands only for two women journalists to materialise in the mirror behind him as he was finishing his ablutions.

“Oh Jesus! Am I in the wrong place? Sorry now. Sorry now there. Sorry!”

And he took off like a rocket, getting in more steps than he expected.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin at the Rafah border crossing. Photograph: Sarah Burns

Dear God, as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Defence would he now stand accused of opening up a new front in the gender wars? The trip included a fact-finding visit to the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza on Tuesday and a meeting the following day with King Abdullah of Jordan. The Tánaiste also went back to school at a refugee camp in Amman and he was in his element as the politician took a back seat to the múinteoir scoile.

Micheál flew back from Jordan via Istanbul on Thursday. His presence aboard the flight was greeted with good-humoured amusement by passengers returning home from their holidays in Turkey.

He steered clear of the newspapers on the flight home. Instead, he got stuck into The Kidnapping, the new book by Tommy Conlon and Ronan McGreevy about the 1983 kidnapping of businessman Don Tidey by the IRA. It tells the story of “a hostage, a desperate manhunt and a bloody rescue that shocked Ireland”.

Currying favour

Given the grim circumstances surrounding his former leader’s appearance at Newry Magistrates Court, the quiet Dublin solitude of a seat in the Distinguished Visitors’ Gallery in Dáil Éireann was perhaps the best place for the DUP’s Edwin Poots to be on Wednesday.

The Ceann Comhairle, who’s getting giddier by the day as the end of 33rd Dáil draws ever closer, was delighted to welcome “a very distinguished visitor” and a fellow speaker to the lower chamber.

“There’s a Poots loose around this Hoose!” he cried.

Actually, he didn’t say that. He praised Poots for his distinguished and dedicated service to the Northern Ireland Assembly since he was first elected way back in 1998.

“I very much look forward to working with you, as I worked with your predecessors, my good friend Robin Newton and Alex Maskey. I suppose I can say that in the best traditions of this island, both North and South, the door of this House will always be open to you and the kettle will always be on the boil.”

And this point it would have been wonderful if Edwin had seized the opportunity to make amends for the parliamentary atrocity committed by fellow DUP MLA Gregory Campbell 10 years ago.

He could have replied “Go raibh maith agat, Ceann Comhairle”, thus wiping out the dark memory of the day Campbell started his speech during a debate on the Irish language by saying “Curry my yoghurt can coca coalyer” to speaker Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Féin.

There was uproar, with McLaughlin suspending him for a day when he refused to apologise.

Case by case

Food for thought from the Ceann Comhairle after Questions on Policy or Legislation concluded on Wednesday.

There were separate requests from Rural Independent TDs Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane for the Taoiseach to intervene in the case of 13-year-old Liam Dennehy-Quinn from Fossa in Co Kerry who has severe scoliosis and urgently needs surgery.

In the same session, Mick Barry of Solidarity-People Before Profit brought up the similar case of Harvey Sherratt in Cork, who has been on the urgent list for a scoliosis procedure for more than two years.

Sinn Féin TD Réada Cronin asked the Taoiseach to see what he could do for Sean (19), a young Kildare man who has a number of serious mental health issues and is now too old for the Child and Adult Mental Health Services.

As he concluded the session, it was clear the Ceann Comhairle has been thinking about the sort of questions asked by TDs and if they are appropriate for the national parliament.

“It’s not my job to tell people what they can or cannot ask during Questions on Policy or Legislation,” said Seán Ó Fearghaíl, choosing his words carefully. “I think we are all acutely aware of the dreadful suffering of the families of children with scoliosis and more so the suffering of the poor unfortunate children themselves.

“But if we’re going to rehash every medical emergency in the country and bring them in here day after day and start asking people to deal with individual cases – that’s not really what the Dáil chamber is about. What we need to expect is that the systems – the HSE systems and health systems work. And we can’t be holding the Taoiseach – and it doesn’t matter who the taoiseach is – we can’t be holding them personally accountable for every individual case.”

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