Letter to the Taoiseach

THE success of our colleagues in the 26 Counties will undoubtedly have a positive impact on Sinn Féin’s electoral performance in the month of May in the Six Counties, Taoiseach.
As you know, there will be Assembly elections and district council elections in the North on the 30th anniversary of Bobby Sands’s death on hunger strike. Will Fine Gael or Labour – or Fianna Fáil for that matter – be putting up any candidates in those elections?  We often hear that these parties are organised ‘in every part of the country’.
Taoiseach, what are you going to do with the Gaeltacht?  Why are you planning to diminish the Irish language in the school curriculum?
I remember reading a book at Queen’s University Belfast in the 1980s when I was studying Political Science/Celtic Studies: Fine Gael – Irish or West British?  That book made an impression on me. Trust you, Enda – from Mayo, above all, a county with its proud history of Michael Gaughan, Frank Stagg and all the rest – to confirm this early impression.
While everyone was campaigning for the Southern assembly elections, we were busy, too, living out politics in the Northern Assembly. We have had a number of late sittings in recent weeks because we are trying to complete a legislative programme before the current Assembly dissolves on Thursday 24 March.
One of these late sittings was on Valentine’s Night. The Leas Ceann Comhairle in the seat was David McClarty (formerly of the UUP, now an Independent MLA). Come to think of it, there is a right lock of them in the Dáil now as well. Anyway, David had a plate of mints in front of him, as a Speaker would. I suggested to him on a Point of Order that, given the day and the hour, he should have placed Love Hearts in front of him instead of mints. David went one better and said that he understood that I had booked a table for myself and my wife “and she doesn’t even play snooker”. David was always the romantic but that wasn’t in evidence the day he parted company with Tom Elliott and the UUP.
I was doing a bit of canvassing, myself, Taoiseach, in the Virginia area of County Cavan. Tina Tully was our leader as we pressed people to vote for Kathryn Reilly Number One and Caoimhghín Number Two. Joe Gallagher from Tattyreagh was with me in one farmyard and he eyed some farm implements lying on the ground that were the worse for the weather and the years. Joe said: “They remind me of Fianna Fáil – they were going well one time but look at the shape of them now!”