Brownshirts, Blueshirts, and Greenshirts
While the impartial observer would be justified in concluding that politics in the Irish Republic has spent most of the last 10 years in a deep slumber, those ten years do seem to have set the stage for a new round of rhetoric about Irish nationalism. The governing Fianna Fail-Progressive Democrat coalition is displaying every sign of panic about the electoral potential of Sinn Fein in this June's local and European elections, and the longer-term trend worries the government even more. The government is implementing its onslaught via a transparent Mr Nasty -- Mr Nice routine, in which Justice Minister Michael McDowell administers a good "tune-up" (as the NYPD would say), and then genial Taoiseach Bertie Ahern steps in to hold back his crazy colleague.
McDowell has been working his Mr Nasty bit for several weeks -- to the point where he's earning the approval the Ulster Unionists. He stepped it up again this weekend, comparing the Shinners to the Nazis:
It's [Sinn Fein -- IRA relationship] just like the Nazis and the Brownshirts - looking at them and saying they are two separate organisations and saying there's no connection - there's a very close connection.
An incidental advantage of this line of attack is that for the more historically minded, it also recalls the now inconsequential debate about the linkages between Fine Gael and the Republic's comical flirtation with fascism, the Blueshirts.
But McDowell didn't stop at the historical analogies -- he also accused the IRA of being involved in corruption at Dublin port, and he said that the names of the people on the IRA Army Council are household names associated with Sinn Fein.
Enter Bertie with his usual hands-off style of management:
When asked about Mr McDowell's view that some of the household names from Sinn Fein were on the IRA Army Council, Mr Ahern said he was not aware of this and that he personally did not know.
He also said he was not sure if the Minister for Justice was aware who was on the army council.
One wonders what Bertie and McDowell do talk about around the Cabinet table. But in any event, the Shinners, with their, shall we say, robust nationalism do pose problems for the FFers, for whom Irish nationalism was always mainly about shouting and roaring at their Ard Fheis. They showed that they can move with the times, by working in Ireland's big weekend win over England in rugby:
A local election candidate won cheers by suggesting Ireland had defeated "the Brits" at Twickenham.
Who knew that Scotland and Wales were on the field along with England? And while it was fun for the lads to contemplate the Irish victory over England at Twickenham, don't push them too hard on whether such a spectacle might be witnessed at Croke Park in the future, because the governing body is sticking to its position that there'll be no debate on hosting furrin games there for a while, a decision from which Bertie can conveniently detach himself. But the Shinners have too much other good material to work with to even bother forcing Bertie to adopt a specific position on soccer and rugby at Croke Park: voter disgust with the endless revelations of corruption and the rise of the Oirish VIP culture.