Letter to the Taoiseach

Barry McElduff

BY BARRY McELDUFF


Will you eventually change your mind?  The last Taoiseach offering himself to the electorate of thirteen-sixteenths of Ireland, and approaching that election not going to serve the full term in office was de Valera himself.  March 1957.  Fifty years ago.
Vote for Bertie, Taoiseach, but who will you get, Kevin Rafter of The Sunday Tribune is asking?
It is a big week up North.  Ian Paisley has us all guessing.  Ian’s dreadful dilemma is that he might be about to receive what he asked for all along.  A Northern Assembly.  Alright, there is a strong all-Ireland dimension and talk of equality and power-sharing.  All the more of a dilemma then.
I meet Ian in Stormont most weeks.  Not the chattiest of colleagues, you could say.
A far cry from Cell 29 on A Wing in the Crumlin Road Prison where we met in the summer of 1990.  Myself and a comrade from Newry had a full scale conversation with our MEP about prison conditions.  Because I said that I represented Sinn Féin, Ian assumed that my comrade was from “PIRA” as he called it.  Ian was right, which is why I can never understand his stoney silence in the corridors of Stormont.  Did I ever tell you that Ian Óg was a contemporary of mine at Queens University?  So much in common.
By the way, Taoiseach, thanks for your message about the gallant hurlers from Clooney near Aghoghill in County Antrim.  They, too, had a great day at Pairc an Chrócaigh even if they didn’t manage to pull it off.  I believe that in this part of Antrim, it is courageous in itself to carry a hurl, never mind having all-Ireland ambitions.  You were as sharp as a corner forward going for the breaking ball when you reminded me of this after I had bragged about Greencastle and Coleraine.  There are parts of the North where cricket would be more welcome.  And what about Crossmaglen?  No, not the Brit helicopter.  Oisín.  ‘The levelness of the Fianna’ and fair play to him for his late intervention.
I never thought that I’d be congratulating an Irish cricket team, did you?  Is this, too, the inevitable outworking of the Good Friday Agreement?
Staying on matters sporting, I see the Nally Stand under reconstruction at Pairc Colmcille in Carrickmore.  If tickets are ever scarce for a big match in Dublin, Taoiseach, you can always guarantee the punter “two Nally Stand tickets”.  Wait for a moment before seeing their glee melt away with the follow-up “...but it is in Carrickmore.”  Not much fun on your own in mid-Tyrone when the action is in the Capital, Taoiseach.
Do you want the latest instalment in my long-running saga aimed at holding the British Minister to account for her stewardship of education in the North?  I told you previously of my request for a meeting with her.  It all began last June.  Then I was offered a date in February of this year, later changed to 12 March.  Then 20 March.  Then 2 April, the day after April Fool’s Day.  Now it is being put on hold ‘indefinitely.’
Anyway, the Minister’s Private Office used ‘Purdah’ as a reason for delaying the meeting, a strange rule prohibiting election candidates from meeting Ministers.  Now the reason detailed is that there might be a local Minister in place by 2 April.  What if there isn’t?  What if there is?

I know I exist, Taoiseach.  I consume, therefore I am.  But what about Maria Eagle.  Does she exist or are we all hallucinating?

Is Mise,
Barry McElduff


NB: Bertie Ahern can be contacted on (00 353) 1 619 4020 or e-mail [email protected].  Address: Office of the Taoiseach, Government Buildings, Dublin 2.