Party leaders showed a softer, less divisive side even though present economic woes took the fun out of proceedings
THERE IS a sense of history in the Round Room at the Mansion House. This is where it all began for Dáil Éireann with that historic founding meeting all of 90 years ago.
There were just over two dozen TDs present on that occasion. Others were unavoidably absent because they were in jail or on the run. Unionists and members of the Irish Parliamentary Party declined the invitation to attend.
Some people at the time thought the members of the First Dáil hadn't a clue what they were doing and would never achieve their objectives for the country. Some people think the same about the present membership of Dáil Éireann. Plus ça change.
The current batch of TDs and Senators turned out in force at the Round Room to mark the anniversary. They were like refugees attending a religious service before heading on towards an unknown destination. Let’s face it: the economy has taken the fun out of Irish politics.
You couldn’t help wondering what the founder-members of Dáil Éireann would have thought of their successors, had they been in attendance at yesterday’s ceremony.
The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is that they might have been quietly impressed. Most of the speeches were well- delivered: we shall draw a veil over the halting contribution from Cathaoirleach of the Seanad Pat Moylan.
Enda Kenny, whose public performances rarely get good reviews, surprised everyone by rising to the occasion and delivering an eloquent tribute to the members of the First Dáil, regardless of what side they took in the subsequent Treaty split. He even got in a kind word for the Redmondites which evoked the only “hear, hear” of the day from the floor.
But given that virtually all the proceedings of that initial meeting in 1919 were conducted in Irish, it was surprising the Fine Gael leader drew so sparingly on his own excellent command of the language.
Not so the Taoiseach and Eamon Gilmore, who delivered a generous “blasht” in the first official language. The quality of Brian Cowen’s oratory varies from zero to 100 per cent, depending on his mood. His speech yesterday deserved a 60 per cent rating, which is still better than most other TDs.
As befits a Labour leader, Gilmore highlighted the Democratic Programme, that radical, socially conscious document read out at the First Dáil and quietly abandoned thereafter.
He rightly reminded us of those egalitarian aspirations which still remain to be achieved.
John Gormley spoke for the Greens and Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin for Sinn Féin, but – wait a minute – who is that vaguely familiar-looking man with the crew-cut making his way to the podium? Why it’s Senator Ciarán Cannon of the Progressive Democrats. Weren’t they formally interred in the vault of history months ago? It was as if Cathal Brugha himself had come back to life and resumed his post as the first ceann comhairle.
Cannon however acquitted himself well. He would make a plausible-enough frontbench spokesman for, say, Fine Gael? Meanwhile our imaginary First Dáil member, making his ghostly visit, would have to say: “These party leaders rose to the occasion – more or less.”
The Taoiseach used his speech to have a swipe at the Eurosceptics. It sounded like the first round in the battle over Lisbon Two. Meanwhile, the Labour leader suggested making January 21st our National Independence Day.
Nice try, Eamon, but I’m not sure how the employers’ representatives in Ibec will react to that one.
It’s a pity the Dáil doesn’t have more of these ceremonial occasions, which convey a more favourable impression than the snarls and soundbites we see on the evening news, with the sound of the ceann comhairle’s gong as background accompaniment.
