Sir, – Further to the hare that Felix M Larkin seems to have started with his letter to you last Saturday (Letters, October 19th) on the subject of iconic Irish political phrases, I am reminded of some sharp remarks made in the Dáil in the late 1970s by the late lamented John Kelly TD addressed to the late and equally lamented Brian Lenihan TD who was at that time the government minister for fisheries.
“He is nothing but a petty Bismarck of the lobster pots. Look at him there – like a crocodile basking on the banks of the Zambezi.”
The minister did not rise to the bait.
Incidentally, those aficionados of the calculated political insult and incendiary political allegation could do worse than acquire a copy of The Begrudger’s Guide to Irish Politics by one of your late and equally lamented correspondents, Breandán O hEithir. – Yours, etc,
ARTHUR BOLAND,
Co Clare.