Right now, with three weeks to go, what do we want of the person who is to be the next Uachtarain na hEireann? Item number one: no midnight bunks to some betterpaid job elsewhere. No abdication with the job undone. The last President we had, thingummy, never told us, `I will be President only so long as no better position comes my way." She never said, "Come dance with me in Ireland, but this is a UN excuse-me, and if some handsome UN agency comes along I'm going to drop you like a bucket of dog-poo and swan off with him, leaving you without a Head of State entirely."
If she'd said that, nobody would have voted for her. That stands to reason. So don't expect any of the candidates this time to stand up and declare: "I will be Head of State of the Irish Republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces - of which I am so unspeakably proud (sob) - for so long as it suits me, and no longer, and if it is in my interests to leave this country - which I love so very very dearly (sob) - without a Head of State, I bloody well will, okay?"
If any of them has a midnight flit in mind, they're not going to spill the beans during the campaign. We might be stupid, but we're not so stupid as to deliberately elect another bolter, are we? Are we?
President of Ireland
And another thing. We should be choosing a President who is President of Ireland, not of Somalia, not of Rwanda, not of Burundi nor of anywhere else which gets into difficulties. I don't want the President of Ireland standing in cities I can't find on the map and assuring the folks there that not merely will he, she or it represent Ireland, but represent that lot as well. No indeed.
And I don't want the President of Ireland to be the symptom of national calamity in countries we've never heard of. I don't want foreigners to declare: "Blimey, Ndedebinge, things must be worse than we thought. The President of Ireland's just landed. Time to lift the mattress, grab the life savings and scram." I don't want the honour guard of some Third World country camping out in the dutyfree of the national airport just in case the President of Ireland pops by. Again. Must be time. We haven't seen the creature in ten days now, and there was that earthquake in downtown Mbunge this morning and a hen was killed. That's enough to get the President of Ireland packing the toothbrush and comandeering the state jet, crying, "Get me to Buranda, pronto, they need me out there."
So. No bolters, no visitaholics, and no presidents-for-other-peoples in the park. What do we want, then? We want a quiet stayer who won't put the old hoof between the molars at every opportunity.
Is this person Dana? Well, maybe, if you want a President who thinks the presidential campaign is about the Penal Laws. They've been finished for over two centuries, but she appears to think they're on the way back if she doesn't win the presidential race. So do we want somebody who thinks the job of the President is to oppose the Penal Laws? Or maybe the feudal system? Or the advent of printing? And there's that fellow, what do you call him, Luther, stirring things up in Germany. And what about the Crusades? Etc.
Goose Green
Now for that other Northerner. Do you know who she reminds me of? It's been nagging at me like a sore tooth for ages. It came to me the other night. Thatcher. In terms of reticence, sensibility, attention to other people's point of view, manner, even the flashing eyes, she's North Belfast's answer to Margaret Thatcher, without the handbag.
McAlthatcher. When she talks about love and building bridges, it's rather like hearing the other lady talk about Goose Green and the third battalion, the Parachute Regiment, handbag swinging, eyes flashing killer-rays.
But that's only one reason why I tremble at the prospect of McAlthatcher in the Aras, busily demanding what we've done today, examining our fingernails and asking us about our homework. There's a whiff of the stepladder about her ambitions for the park. Oh, no doubt I'm wrong, but I get the feeling that if she were elected we'd wake up one day, exhausted after a night's fretful sleeping because of the algebra test she'd got lined up for us, only to find she'd gone. Done a bunk. Fecked off to the World Bank or the IMF or the Vatican to be the first woman pontiff, Pope McAlthatch I.
Then there's Adi Roche, and the exclamation marks with which she litters her correspondence. All those !!!!!!!s emanating from the Park, with those big round eyes, sad and reproachful as they ask me wordlessly what I had done today to reduce the world's stockpile of nuclear wapons.
Nothing, Adi. That's my problem. I think the French are right to have nuclear weapons. While the Pakistanis and the Russians and the Chinese and the Indians and the Israelis and the Iranians and maybe even the Teletubbies have nuclear weapons, I think Europe should have a deterrent which scares the knickers off anybody who thinks about barbecuing Paris or possibly even Limerick. On second thoughts, though . . .
Pleased with the Park
Mary Banotti is the only candidate I actually know personally. She listens to people, and she does not appear to think the former Viceroy's pad is a stepping-home to palaces grander and nobler. I understand. I've seen her house. She'll be pleased enough with the Park. And there'll probably be no fingernail parades with her in the Aras, and she won't spend all night listening to the BBC World Service, in case there's some natural disaster she can go winging off to. Wake Up! A flood in Bangladesh! Okay guys, let's move it!
And finally there's the Rosser, the Fuzz, the Honest Cop, Nally by name, pally by nature. Not a runner either, nor likely to go jousting after the Penal Laws or reclaim Constantinople for Christianity. And he will definitely not wag his finger at the Americans and give them lectures on how to conduct their defence policy. He is, what's more, a man who has actually guarded the Constitution.
So then there were two. Bet you can't guess which two.