Miriam Lord: Politicians plough into photo opportunities

They must be putting something funny in the water at Cabinet meetings.

First the Minister for Agriculture got up close and personal with a winsome piglet.

Then the Taoiseach held up a saucy photo of an attractive young lady reclining on a bale of hay wearing black stockings and suspenders.

The Minister for the Environment was caught scuttling out of the Irish Water marquee like a bishop trying to slink from a lapdancing club after dawn.

Meanwhile, the Tánaiste stood grinning with Willie Penrose and a collection of sheep beside a large sign saying: “Win a pair of breeding hoggets.”

We don’t mind saying, but on that showing, we awaited the arrival of Michael Noonan with some trepidation.

To be fair to Simon Coveney, he must have had quite a shock when he set eyes on his favourite Cork-based newspaper on Wednesday morning.

"Farmers believe Ireland is ready for a gay taoiseach" trumpeted the Irish Examiner's front page headline.

Good news indeed for Leo Varadkar, but a right kick in the teeth for the Minister for Agriculture. He may not have been thinking straight when photographer Barbara Lindberg suggested to Simon that he might like to be photographed with a pig.

Simon was in very good spirits when he chanced upon two colour writers on their way to an early breakfast in Rumbles canteen.

“You should go over and hold some lovely pigs,” he advised us, adding he had just had his picture taken with one. He was clearly taken with Spotty, a hairy KuneKune piglet who was charming all the boys at the Irish Pig Society’s stand.

Good bless his innocence.

“Perhaps not a great idea, under the circumstances,” we sniggered to an oblivious Simon, who promptly went and tweeted a photo of himself and the gorgeous Spotty. And a lovely couple they make too.

“Piggate” – the soaraway political story of the week in Britain – hadn’t occurred to the saintly Coveney, which is more than you can say for the delighted hacks he bumped into.

One thing is sure, though. Anna May and Anna Maria McHugh, the two formidable women behind the huge success that is the National Ploughing Championships, would have kept a very strong eye on British prime minister David Cameron had he pitched up anywhere in the vicinity of their pig pens.

Press the flesh

Enda Kenny, meanwhile, had a very small window of opportunity to press the flesh this year. Ordinarily, he has to be dragged away from the event after countless hours running around the place in a selfie-fuelled orgy of photo-ops. But a very tired looking Taoiseach had to fit his visit around a packed schedule.

He began his whistlestop tour at 8am with a deeply traumatised cohort of the Dublin meeja in tow, and them having to leave their warm beds in Dublin at five in the morning to beat the traffic and be in Ratheniska to meet him.

It was an uneventful couple of hours for Enda, made all the easier by the fact that the bulk of the crowd hadn’t arrived yet. He held a brief press conference (securing the recovery, taking on the challenge of the recovery, securing the second term and bringing the recovery securely to rural Ireland).

Then it was up to view “the plots”. Something any Taoiseach in search of further education would enjoy, except in this case it meant the plots of stubbled land about to be ploughed.

Enda met Eamonn Tracey from Carlow, Ireland’s reigning world champion in the Conventional Plough class. Last year, he met John Whelan, then world champion in the Reversible Class. Which was appropriate, as his Government wants it known that reversal years are now behind them and it’s onwards and upwards to conventional election politics.

In between, he managed to meet some of the women behind Macra na Feirme’s daring new 2016 calendar, put together to raise funds for mental health awareness.

Suspenders

With Marita Kelly by his side, he faced the cameras holding the calendar which he accepted with hardly a glance. It was open at the page for November, and featured Cork local radio presenter Marita and her suspenders looking very alluring in the hay barn.

Enda smiled and then, perhaps noticing the sudden interest of the frothing photographers, he slowly, without looking down, flicked over to the next page, and the next. Which only made them worse.

Then he congratulated the Macra women for their excellent initiative, declared his full support for their excellence cause and swiftly handed the calendar on to somebody else.

At an event where all the politicians shamelessly hunt photo opportunities, nobody was given any notice of Alan Kelly’s visit to Irish Water. We saw him leaving their big marquee with his head turned towards the wall, talking urgently into his phone.

They weren’t doing a huge amount of business inside. Perhaps they should have considered putting up a sign saying “Get your conservation grants here!”

Irish Water was next to an exhibition area housing various government agencies such as Revenue, Corporate Enforcement and the Central Statistics Office. They were busy.

When the Minister for Finance arrived, that’s where he went. Mercifully, nothing racy happened.

The Tánaiste held her own press conference, before bumping into Alan Dukes on her way to gurgle at the hoggets. At the Labour tent, which offered “giant vitamin C lollipops”, she poured tea for deputy Penrose. Later, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network volunteers posed for photographs with her in front of their banners. “Are you getting much interest?” she asked.

Anna Maria McHugh, one of the twin powers behind the ploughing event, kept an eye on the unfolding carnival. Anna Maria sported an impressive bandage on her hand. She was doing an interview on the dairy sector at seven in the morning when the bockety high stool she was sitting on collapsed, mangling the top of one of her fingers. But she carried on.

Enda told her: “When I see her next, I tell Angela Merkel that she’s met her match.”