The theatrics and farce on display in the Dáil chamber during the week and, by all accounts, at private internal party meetings, allowed the granny champions to strut their stuff on various political stages.
They can return content to their constituencies this weekend, satisfied they have shown “them up in Dublin” that the ancient rights and customs of rural Ireland are not to be meddled with. They can be happy too that they have underlined, in the eloquent words of the authoritative Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape, that the bog has been “etched as deeply into the human as into the physical record in Ireland, to an extent unrivalled in Europe”.
Would that they would express themselves so thoughtfully. It says much about political priorities and perspective that so much time this week was taken up with pillorying Green Party Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan who, hardly surprisingly and entirely appropriately, wants to improve the quality of Ireland’s air and discourage use of fossil fuels amid a climate change emergency. Ryan, as revealed by some of the TDs who are passionate keepers of the flame of turf burning, and as recorded for posterity in the official Dáil proceedings, was “talking on every radio station about locking up grannies and anybody who gave a bag of turf to their neighbours”, part, apparently, of “the attack going on in rural Ireland”.
Endurance has not always necessitated maturity, as the continuity of localism and myopia reveals
There will be much reflection later this year on the centenary of the creation of this State and on the endurance of our democracy; how a small, independent State emerged after a War of Independence to experience its infancy in Civil War, but how, unlike so many other states created after the first World War, it was robust enough to withstand extremism and existential threat to ultimately reach the milestone of a century of unbroken democracy. It is indeed a notable achievement, but endurance has not always necessitated maturity, as the continuity of localism and myopia reveals.
There was also self-serving codology over fuel on display in the late 1980s when then minister for the environment Pádraig Flynn was widely criticised for what was regarded as heel dragging when it came to smog due to the burning of bituminous (smoky) coal in Dublin. In an amusing editorial in November 1988, this newspaper looked cynically at the perceived lack of urgency on the part of Flynn, suggesting “if a wisp of the filth that has shrouded Dublin for a week were detected in the streets of Castlebar – where his votes come from – Pádraig Flynn would have the army out with vacuum cleaners to get rid of it”.
Flynn had to, he insisted, “satisfy the concerns” of the coal industry and rather than an outright ban there was experimentation with “designated smoke control areas” and placing the onus on local authorities to establish the incidence and cause of air pollution in each locality.
It was a bad joke. During the winter of 1988 in some parts of Dublin smoke concentrations reached seven times the European Community maximum daily limit. In December 1989, publisher Steve MacDonagh, based in Dingle, was in Dublin city on business: “I felt as if horses were walking on my chest as my asthma responded to the Dublin smog,” he recorded.
Surgical masks were a necessity for some and there was an incontrovertible correlation that decade between excess winter mortality and smog. Mary Harney, as minister of State for environmental protection, subsequently insisted on a ban on the sale, marketing, and distribution of bituminous coal which was introduced in Dublin in September 1990. The effects were instantaneous, with an estimation that the prohibition resulted in 350 fewer annual deaths in the capital.
The triumph of localism . . . highlights much that is wrong with our political culture
The current rhetorical outrage from those who like to insist there is an urban, Dublin-based agenda to undermine rural Ireland is a contrivance and promoting the idea of this great gulf suits the victim politics these TDs thrive on. Amid all the mock horror, climate change does not get a look in because the conclusion has long been drawn that this is a not an issue that can generate enough votes to be useful.
The triumph of localism, now a shameless form of climate change denial, highlights much that is wrong with our political culture, despite our much-vaunted political stability. It is also self-defeating; as far back as the mid 1980s, anthropologist Lee Komito, who extensively researched the theme of localism in Irish politics, concluded that the phenomenon “does not alter the circumstances which originally fostered it and may only provide superficial relief while actually creating a greater need for fundamental, but postponed changes”.
His observations are more relevant than ever, especially in relation to delayed responses to climate change and outdated reliance on fossil fuel.