Miriam Lord's Week

Recess revelling; motoring metaphor; wrath of Mammy; wheels of steel; Rónáns girls

IT’S BEEN like the last days of the Roman Empire around Leinster House this week. The bars hopping. Parties everywhere. People talking about love and the meaning of life and falling out and making up. Protests and plaudits at the gates.

Summer recess madness took hold on Tuesday and there was no let-up until yesterday when the walking wounded finally limped back to their constituencies.

It has been a bruising session.

Everyone wanted to “bond”. (Except those protesters who suspected it might constitute a sin.) Fianna Fáil went off to Krystle nightclub on Wednesday night for an indoor barbecue.

There is a vicious rumour doing the rounds that Brian Cowen ate Mattie McGrath. The Government women organised a dinner for themselves in a smart restaurant. Tánaiste Mary Coughlan laid on the charm and a drinks reception for all female parliamentarians on Wednesday evening.

On the same night, the Greens held a “Stag Party” in a city centre pub to toast the passing of the Wildlife Bill.

Fine Gael had a bonding session in the Members’ Restaurant on Tuesday.

Labour went mad and enjoyed a few noncommittal drinks in the Dáil bar on Thursday.

There have been reports of disoriented herds of political correspondents stampeding jubilantly down the plinth in search of wine and lamb chops. Not true. It was not a stampede. More like a dignified exit from Robben Island after a lengthy incarceration. (But only because Stephen Collins wouldn’t let us bring our vuvuzelas.)

Boys’ long lunch

Oh, the social whirl never stops. Another outing for the Taoiseach yesterday, and a very pleasant one it was too, judging by the happy din of speechifying and singing, raucous laughter and convivial clinking that was drifting down from the upstairs dining room in Dobbins yesterday evening.

It was a long lunch and diners below were fascinated by the various names that flitted past at different stages.

The occasion was the 70th birthday party of impresario and proud son of Duhallow in Cork, Oliver Barry (it’s officially tomorrow). The lunch was organised by former Wexford TD Séamus Cullimore and broadcaster Vincent Browne. And the stellar cast of birthday revellers included Brian Cowen, Gay Byrne, Johnny Giles, Noel Pearson, Maurice Manning, Earl Gill and PJ Mara. (It was all very male.)

“We were intrigued” an early-bird diner confided breathlessly over the phone from the bustling bistro. “Gaybo, Gilesy, Biffo, Mara. There was applause and we could hear speeches and the sound of singing. Then the Irish coffees went up. Then somebody came down and said they didn’t need any more red or white because there was plenty left upstairs.”

BBQ Ps and Qs

The FF BBQ was a rip-roaring success too. (Twenty a head and the secretary gets in for free.) Deputies John Creegan and Frank Fahy were the entertainment officers who collected the gate money.

One imagined, with so many of their members currently outside the parliamentary party and talk of a heave still bubbling under the surface, that the event might have been a little strained. But Fianna Fáil are a sociable lot. Even the strays were brought into the fold – the whipped and unwhipped unwound together in the sparkly surrounds of Krystle niteclub.

Mattie McGrath, who was turned away from lunch with the Taoiseach last week, arrived late and was welcomed with open arms. He even exchanged pleasantries with the Taoiseach, who was sitting on the upper balcony with John Moloney.

They threw the last steak on the griddle for him. And Mattie showed his gratitude by performing an Irish dance. His entry in the current Nealon’s Guide to the Dáil and Seanad concludes with the intriguing line: “All-Ireland set dancer 1974.” Nobody minded that he arrived with Hughie McGrath, an Independent councillor from Nenagh and two of his friends. “It was a great night. I was out dancing with the press office girls. Doing the Highland Fling with them.”

No escape for John

It’s been a stressful few months for new Fianna Fáil Chief Whip John Curran, who has to keep a very jumpy party in check.

So the deputy for Dublin Mid-West would have been glad of the break from politics last weekend when he went to a wedding in Bansha. However, given that he was in Tipperary, he should have known that he wouldn’t be allowed forget the Mattie McGrath saga.

The priest spotted Curran in the church and couldn’t resist telling him to go easy on the man from whom he removed the party whip. “You’re in Mattie-land now!” said Fr Hickey.

It’s still all go for the Tipperary South maverick, who’s off on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje next Saturday for his holidays. Last night, he was presented with a “hound” by the local field sport clubs at a function in Cahir’s Galtee Inn. “If it’s a bitch, we’ll be in trouble.”

A fraught affair

Fine Gael held an end-of-term bonding session on Tuesday night. At times, the atmosphere was rather fraught, we hear.

Earlier this year, incoming party chairman Padraic McCormack promised that he would host “a non-political social night out with husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends or whatever you’re into yourself”. He was true to his word, although very few partners made it into Leinster House for the knees-up.

There was wine and finger food for the fatigued troops in a side room off the members’ restaurant, and while some of the crew who attempted to overthrow Enda Kenny were present, quite a few stayed away, including Denis Naughten, Michael Creed and Billy Timmons. There was no sign of Leo Varadkar either.

Richard Bruton was in flying form. Enda Kenny, according to a number of sources, appeared somewhat ill at ease. “Conversation was a little strained at some points,” said one deputy who “didn’t stay too long”. It must be difficult to keep smiling when you know that a large number of the people in the room voted to get rid of you. However, Enda loosened up considerably as the night wore on.

There was widespread and indiscriminate singing. The culprits included Pat Breen, Dinny McGinley, Joe Carey (who sang about greyhounds), Maurice Cummins (excellent light tenor) and Frankie Feighan (only knows one song, sang it again). Alan Shatter’s wife performed a number from the shows while Catherine Byrne of Dublin South Central brought the house down with a magnificent rendition of the song which won the Eurovision for Vicki Leandros of Greece in 1974.

Justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan surprised everyone by bursting into song while Cork veteran PJ Sheehan had to wrestled into submission as he attempted to embark on his fourth come-all-ye.

The party was interrupted twice when votes were called.

Many repaired to the members’ bar to continue the festivities, where they joined the large number of Cowenites already ensconced there after their boss did his “put up or shut up” routine at the parliamentary party meeting.

At one stage, sharp words were exchanged between Charlie Flanagan, who voted against Enda Kenny and loyalists Tom Sheahan (Kerry South) and Joe Carey (Clare). Sheahan and Carey have become such a double act that some in the party are referring to them as "Bert and Ernie". There's nothing like a bit of bonding. Enda finished the evening with his arm around the irrepressible PJ, who was moist-eyed and crooning Nóirín Báninto his leader's ear.

After Tuesday’s soiree, they must all be looking forward to the social aspect of September’s think-in. At least the hotel won’t have to lay on any ice in the bar.

Batt-mobile blows it

“Blasht!” bellowed Batt when his black BMW blew up as he was belting through Bunratty. It happened yesterday morning. The Minister for Enterprise was on his way to Co Clare to announce 117 new jobs in Shannon.

O’Keeffe was passing Bunratty Castle when smoke began billowing from the bonnet of his State car. A quick check by his garda driver ascertained that the power-steering and alternator had gone wallop. What to do? They limped along the hard shoulder at a snail’s pace. Unsympathetic motorists sneered past in their traded-down recession mobiles.

Finally, an unmarked Garda Merc (no, really) arrived to rescue poor Batt and deliver him to his good-news gig at Genworth Financial.

A Minister’s travails in a State car – an apt motoring metaphor to sum up our limping Government and clapped-out economy? “Indeed yes,” says a spokesman, rather too enthusiastically. “The engine blew up. But like Minister O’Keeffe, we have identified the problem and are taking steps to correct it. In the meantime, we will continue in the right direction – it isn’t easy – and we are confident we will come through the difficulty and arrive safely at our destination.”

Stag party

The Greens are so happy. First the Wildlife Bill and now the Civil Partnership Bill. They gathered in Doyle’s pub on College Green on Wednesday to celebrate the passing of the legislation. Eamon Ryan was the only minister present.

We hear some of the younger Greens, who have a tendency to giddiness, had mocked up a large photograph of Liam Cahill – the frontman for Rise! (Rural Ireland Says Enough!) — with a pair of antlers on his head.

They called their celebration a Stag party.

Meanwhile, in the Dáil, Fine Gael’s Shane McEntee of Meath East, who was passionately opposed to the banning of the Ward Union Hunt, repeated “The stags will be back in Meath! The stags will be back in Meath!” It hasn’t been a great few weeks for the doughty man from Nobber. The Ward Union gets the chop, and, despite passionately backing Enda in the leadership contest, he doesn’t make it to the leader’s first team. But he was magnanimous enough to congratulate colleague Leo Varadkar on his appointment.

We overheard him. “Congratulations,” he called. “At least you got one!”

Keep a civil tongue

Paul Gogarty of the Greens caused consternation among the people protesting against the Civil Partnership Bill when he blew them a kiss after the legislation was passed by the Seanad.

His party emerged from Leinster House en mass to welcome the new law amid cries of “Shame!” from the protesters.

“Rather than giving them a ‘Deputy Stagg’, I decided to be polite and blow them a kiss instead in the Christian spirit of loving thy neighbour” he tells us.

The father of two, who is a former journalist, is still rather peeved at Fine Gael TD Tom Sheahan for making an (inaccurate) quip about his sexual orientation in the Dáil last week. To compound the matter, Sheahan corrected himself in the Dáil with another incorrect quip.

"Just for the sake of accuracy, I never told Hot Pressmagazine that I'm 25 per cent gay. I told them I used to joke about being 25 per cent gay because people used to comment on the way I dressed in the 80s. It was more like the gayhound debate than the greyhound debate."

And speaking of consternation, Mary O’Rourke got thoroughly fed up with the barracking TDs were getting from the anti-civil partnership people.

“One woman said to me, very aggressively: ‘Have you no children?’ She appeared to be implying that if I did, I would never have agreed with this law. And I said: ‘I am a very proud mother and a very proud grandmother of six grandchildren.”

O’Rourke recalls the woman then said to her: “‘Aren’t you a bit old for this kind of thing?’ I don’t know what she meant by that.” So she turned the tables. “Are you married? Do you have children?” “Oh no. I never had time for that.” Whereupon Mammy declared “Do you know what you are: you’re like a sad aul crow.”

‘I prefer Denis’

Mammy O’Rourke didn’t get to the little drinks party hosted by Mary Coughlan on Wednesday. All female parliamentarians were invited. Politics is a tough business for women in Leinster House aka Testosterone Central.

It was a pleasant gathering, by all accounts, but O'Rourke was otherwise engaged, launching Siobhan Creaton's latest book: A Mobile Fortune: The Life and Times of Denis O'Brien. O'Rourke was in top form. (And as a former minister for enterprise, she had some jousting form with both Denis O'Brien and Michael O'Leary.) At the packed launch in Dubray Books on Grafton Street, she declared "I was up until two in the morning with Denis," explaining the book was just too good to put down.

Mary said she also enjoyed Creaton’s biography of Ryanair boss O’Leary. “And I notice you didn’t ask me to launch that one!” The author noted that O’Rourke had dealings with the late Tony Ryan’s two apprentices. She used to call Denis O’Brien “the pirate,” so what was her name for O’Leary? There came no reply, followed by: “but I prefer Denis any day”. There has long been a rivalry between the two graduates of the Tony Ryan finishing school. Their respective camps trumpet the merits of one man over the other. According to Creaton, in the case of O’Brien’s “Ratpack” group of cheerleaders, they say “O’Leary is a great manager but O’Brien is a great risk-taker and entrepreneur.” The Denis book is already at No 1 in the bestseller list.

Jedward ready to go

Junior Minister Sean Connick got a bit of a fright earlier in the week when he heard the news that one of the Jedwards had injured his leg during a dance routine at a concert in England. He had booked Jedward as the headline act next Saturday at the JFK Dunbrody Festival in New Ross.

Connick is chairman of the festival, which is in it 10th year and brings in a big midsummer boost to the seaside town.

“I’m assured by Jedward’s management that John Grimes didn’t break his leg. We’re expecting a crowd of up to 15,000 for the concert,” says Sean.

“As far as I’m concerned there’ll be no excuse. If there’s any problem I’ll give him a loan of my wheelchair.” Among the other acts Sean has lined up is internet sensation Crystal Swing, Brendan Boyer, Vanilla Ice, The Coronas and a little known group called The Nomads featuring a certain TD and his wheels of steel.

A Bruton comeback?

Fianna Fáil’s Charlie O’Connor was expecting Fine Gael’s new finance spokesman Michael Noonan to be facing him across the chamber during Tuesday’s debate on the economy. Instead, his predecessor, Richard Bruton was in his place.

“It is traditional when I speak on Private Members’ motions to compliment the movers of the motion. I’m totally confused now because I see Noonan’s name to the fore but I am delighted to welcome the comeback of Bruton,” said Charlie, who only managed to mention Tallaght four times in his contribution.

Richard Bruton smiled. “You haven’t seen the last of Fu Manchu yet!” he replied.

Would that be the diabolical Dr Fu Manchu, criminal genius? Warning to Inda: If Richard starts growing a funny moustache, be afraid. Very afraid.

Rónán’s women

Senator Rónán Mullen during the Civil Partnership debate: “I must be allowed to comment on certain remarks made about me earlier. I do not mind people seeking to ridicule, taking me on in arguments or suggesting that my amendments might have unintended consequences or might facilitate bad people in society. I am a big boy and am able to argue my case. I take issue with being accused of dressed-up bigotry. In one case Senator McDonald suggested I might have issues with women but I would be happy to supply her with references from some exes.”

Dan Boyle: “Why are they exes so?”