HEART BEAT Maurice NeliganDear children, I feel I have been neglecting you lately. But now I feel I must try to explain to you the current antics of the elves. It really is quite easy. They are merely engaged in trying to defend their turf, and all its perks and privileges. They have to make sure your mammies and daddies don't give everything away to that other shower of elves and pixies, whom they claim can't even agree among themselves.
Much of this has to be taken on trust as it defies any logical explanation, and you can really understand it only if you become a ruling elf or pixie yourself. Putting it as simply as I can, what is happening now is that two elves have been banished from the Dáil (that's their meeting place) and the grown-ups must choose two new ones to replace them.
Why we need 166 elves in the Dáil is quite another matter; I suppose it must be some kind of magic number. Elves are rather like foxes and are very territorial. They don't like outside elves trying to invade their domains. Great care is taken therefore in selecting replacement elves. There must be some sort of elfish gene, because so many of them are related to past members of the Dáil and it is very difficult for anybody without the right connections and family to gain admittance. You never know what such a person might do!
In any case, two new elves are needed. One of the previous elves was sent to America to talk to the American Group and to pretend that we are as important as they are, while not annoying them unduly, as they are the most powerful group and could put some woeful spell on us.
The other elf was banished to Brussels or Siberia or somewhere by the Chief Elf because he was a bit too smart and had very little tolerance for the posturing of some of the other elves in the Government. Besides, he had been in charge of the Crock of Gold and had been reluctant to dispense it to buy votes as in days of yore. That had to change.
The end result is that the mammies and daddies of Meath and North Kildare have to choose two replacement elves. The elfish circuses have appeared as if by magic and are promising all sorts of spells that will bestow on the voters (grown-ups) riches beyond avarice.
As usual there are some cynical folk who do not believe in the little people and maintain that such spells are not worth the parchment they are written on. They actually and shockingly allege that the elves and their promises will simply melt away after the election, leaving nothing behind save a peculiar odour. They would say, as a wise American, Bernard Baruch, once said: "Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."
Sadly I think this sage advice will be ignored. A political elf here who made no promises would get no votes. We persist in believing there is such a thing as a free lunch.
There is history here and can be used instead of the tired old election promises. We are told in a very old book, The Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, that in the year 3503 BC, a daughter of Lughaidh, one of our first kings, requested as a dowry a hill where she might be buried and where every prince born of her race might reign.
Her name improbably was Tea, and the location Teamhair, now Tara.
It might surprise some to know that there were chiefs in the country in bygone years who were not members of Fianna Fáil. The Fir Bolgs and the Tuatha De Danaan spring readily to mind. It is just possible that there might be again. In any case all our chief elves lived in this place called Tara and all roads led there. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for Chief Elf Bertie to promise the good people of Royal Meath that he would re-establish the kingdom in Tara and that he would instruct Elf Cullen for eight-lane highways thence from all over the land.
A new city would spring up and thousands could be decentralised there to recreate the glories of the past. Abbotstown would be nothing on what they could do with Tara. In the same Annals there is reference to Ollamh Fodhla who, having been High King for 40 years, died at his house at Tara. He had established a great feast at Tara "which was kept once a year, whereunto all the King's friends and dutiful people came yearly; and such as came not, were taken for the King's enemies".
Think of that, wouldn't it be far better than a tent in Galway? Let's have a little style here. Behold the vision - endless construction of roads and tolls, palaces for the court, houses for the peasants, jobs for the boys, spin doctors, advisers, PR people, the list is endless. You could be in power for ever.
"In this King's reign the kingdom was free from all manner of sickness."
You would save a fortune on the health service, and that would sort out the doctors as well. The possibility of a new millennium is at hand. Let's stop digging up this wonderful place for roads, railways or whatever is being promised to the people of Meath in order to commute to Dublin. Let the Dubs and the whole world come to them.
If they don't do the right thing by your elf, you can dig the whole place up. If they do the right thing, sure it was only an election promise, and nobody takes them seriously.
mneligan@irish-times.ie
Dr Maurice Neligan is a cardiac surgeon