We are achieving, all the time, new frontiers of phoniness and self-deception. It used to be that our best efforts in this regard were institutionalised in the party political system, the confusing schism which began with the Civil War and continued long after anyone could remember what it was about.
But now there is a new and perhaps more resilient delusionary divide. This one is even more confusing, being as difficult to define as it is to explain. We may not have been able to describe the differences between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, but at least they provided clear representations of the division, making it visible if not comprehensible. The new divide does not have such convenient emblems.
This "modern" set of opposites is predicated, unsurprisingly, on forms of humbug as old as the hills. There is a strain of falseness in the Irish personality that stems from the desire to present an acceptable facade to a world whose opinion is taken too much to heart. It used to be that this manifested itself mainly in religious matters - the kind of oozy piety adopted in case there was a priest lurking in the undergrowth.
Now, in our headlong rush towards the post-Catholic era, it manifests itself in relation to issues of liberalism, progressiveness, political correctness and cosmopolitanism, but is just as false. By "false", I do not mean that it is insincere. Like many affectations it is held with a profound passion by the individual practitioner. We have internalised the condition so effectively that the insincerity is societal rather than personal.
It is interesting to observe the extent to which the presidential election appears set to enact the final battle between the old and the new forms of our collective self-delusion. The humiliation of Albert Reynolds contains many threads of the narrative of modern Ireland, but perhaps the most interesting aspect is that part of the reason he was shafted was because he is not a woman.
It is part of the official ideology of modern Ireland that women are morally superior to men. This is assumed to be not merely self-evident, but also clear evidence of our modernity. It is curious to think how neatly it fits with the perception of women in "traditional" Ireland, as pious, virginal and self-sacrificing. Is it possible that we have not advanced as far as we imagine?
Just as Dana is the representative in this election of the "traditional" strain of feminine piety, going back to the apparitions at Knock in 1879, the other three candidates represent the modern strain, dating from the election of Mary Robinson in 1990. They are the embodiment of liberal piety and pretence, which is not to say that they are either pietistic or pretentious. Far from helping us to imagine ourselves, these candidates are seeking to help us delude ourselves by imagining reality to be other than it is.
It is fine, as we have seen, to write or say mean things about Dana. The problem arises with advancing similar kinds of critiques of the other three candidates. It is a measure of the virulence of the modern strain of piety that even to suggest criticism of, for example, Ms Adi Roche's candidacy is to volunteer for the Dublin 4 Dastardly Bastard of the Year Award. But there are, I believe, a number of points of criticism which need to be articulated.
It is necessary to separate Ms Roche's present public role from both her previous one and also from her personality. It is also necessary to say that she has been, in Irish life, a heroic and inspirational figure. My difficulty is that, in her role as the presidential candidate of the liberal consensus, she will become the enabler of liberal piety and make-believe radicalism at a wider, societal level.
Mary Robinson allowed bourgeois Ireland to market itself as liberal and enlightened without actually having to do anything. By going forward on behalf as the same interests, Ms Roche puts her great work at the disposal of the most modern form of insincerity imaginable.
Furthermore, her nomination displays, again, the cynicism of the Labour Party. With politicians on the ropes due to a succession of scandals, the Labour leadership anticipates that the electorate will again gravitate towards a candidate who is, in Mrs Robinson's phrase, "outside politics". Curiously, among the beneficiaries would be a number of political parties, who would manage to insinuate that they, too, are "outside politics".
But the cynicism runs deeper. In a way, the candidate is not Adi Roche at all, but what she represents. The candidate is actually the children of Chernobyl, and you better have a good reason for not voting for them. Labour, DL and the Green Party are saying to the electorate: "Hit us now, with the poor childer in our arms."
Ms Roche's candidacy is also an attempt to present Irish left-wing politics as enlightened in a way which could hardly be much further from the truth. Look, for example, at the record of the Labour Party on some of the issues with which Adi Roche is associated. Ms Roche is an antinuclear campaigner, who has fought tirelessly for the eradication of nuclear technology and for the welfare of its victims.
Such is my admiration for this work that I would like to see her in a position of genuine power. I would like to see her, for example, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, a position recently vacated by the man who has persuaded her to go forward for the Presidency. In that capacity, between 1993 and 1997, Mr Dick Spring led what was perhaps the most determined onslaught on Irish neutrality in the history of the State.
Although the constitution of his own party commits him to "strengthen our position as a militarily neutral nation outside all military alliances", Mr Spring made assiduous efforts to draw Ireland into the NATO-sponsored, satirically titled, Partnership For Peace. In April 1995, given an opportunity to stand against the select club of nuclear states on the occasion of the renewal of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Mr Spring took the side of the devils, abandoning Ireland's unblemished record of opposition to the nuclear threat.
It is symptomatic of our present condition that we want to have it every which way but the way it used to be. We want the benefits of conservatism, of progress, of the reassuring embrace of the powerful, of the one-off spin-offs of selling out our beliefs. But we also seek to retain a reputation for radicalism, compassion and solidarity with the dispossessed.
We have learned that, with the right incumbent, the Presidency will enable us to effect this confidence trick with ease. At a time when the desire for continued prosperity requires that we abandon any residual unselfishness, it becomes all the more pressing that the image we present suggests the opposite of what we are about.