'How could he be that mullered at half-eight in the morning?'

Letting the old man go on the radio after a night on the lash? Even I could tell Sorcha that’s not the best campaign strategy

I POSSIBLY wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. A girl of, what, five, with an actual mobile phone?

“Who are you texting, Honor?” I just happen to go – this is while I’m driving her in to, like, Montessori on Thursday morning – and she goes, “Mallorie,” a bit snippy with me as well, the way she says it.

See, I’d have been against the idea of letting her even have a phone? That’s if Sorcha had even bothered her orse consulting me. Call me old-fashioned, but I just think kids of that age should be still sucking their thumbs, not using them to send messages about I-don’t-even-know-what to I-don’t-even-know-who.

And they say, though – don’t they? – that every parent should make it their business to find out, which is why I decide to ask the question that any father would.

“So what part of Dublin is this Mallorie from?” Without even looking up she goes, “Highfield Road,” and I’m just like, “Oh,” I suppose relaxing a bit?

She’s there, “All my friends are from, like, RaRaRa?” I’m like, “Where?” She just goes, “Er, RaRaRa?” like it should be somehow obvious to me. She’s honestly just a Mini-Me version of her mother. “Er, hello? Ranelagh-Rathmines-Rathgor?”

Even I have to laugh at that one. See, I thought you had to wait until they were, like, teenagers before they storted giving you that kind of ’tude. They grow up so quickly nowadays – you always hear people say that as well, don’t you? We’re sitting at the lights outside the American embassy when my phone all of a sudden rings. And, speak of the devil, it’s Sorcha herself.

"Put on Morning Ireland," she goes. "Your dad is going to be on."

She hangs up and I manage to find it on the old presets and, yeah, there’s some dude on going, “I’m joined in studio by Charles O’Carroll-Kelly, the first man to declare his candidacy to become Dublin’s first directly elected mayor, and he’s here to talk about, among other things, his controversial campaign to have Greystones Dart station renamed Seán FitzPatrick Station.”

The old man suddenly cuts in – doesn’t even wait to be asked, like, a question? “Controversial to whom? Certainly not the fifteen hundred people who’ve put their names to the petition. Oh, no. You see, there’s a significant constituency of people out there who are intelligent enough to know that poor old Seánie isn’t the villain that some of you chaps in the famous media like to make him out to be.

“They know that personal spending in this country increased out of all proportion to earnings during the years of the, inverted commas, boom, and that’s hardly the fault of one man alone.”

Honor suddenly stops texting and looks up from her phone. “Oh my God,” she goes, “is that Grandad?” and you can tell, roysh, that she’s thinking exactly the same thing as me and everyone else who’s listening. He’s shit-faced.

“Okay, those fifteen hundred signatures,” the dude asking the questions goes, “could they be described as a genuine cross section of public opinion? Are they the names of, for instance, commuters who use the station every day? Or was this petition compiled – as I suspect it was – in the bars of various golf clubs that you and Mr FitzPatrick frequent?”

“I’m going to answer that question,” the old man goes, “by saying this. I can’t say that I know Seán FitzPatrick all that well – although I’ve taken a few bob from him on the golf course over the years, much as he’ll hate me for mentioning it! No, but what I do know about him is this: he is one of maybe 12 men who could be genuinely described as the founding fathers of modern Ireland . . .”

I’m wondering how could he be that mullered at, what, half-eight in the morning? He must have gone on the serious lash to celebrate Hennessy getting his 10 penalty points expunged for him. There was talk of them booking Bentley’s for a porty.

“And what I’m saying is that people like Seánie – and poor old Michael Fingleton, another who’s getting it from your crowd – they are, above all else, patriots. They’re rugby men too – let’s not forget that – but first and foremost they are men who believed in this country’s potential and they gave of themselves – selflessly! – to ensure that potential was realised. And they should be venerated for it! Not publicly chastised! Venerated!”

You can hear the interviewer dude trying to get a word in. “But don’t you think . . .”

“What I think,” the old man goes, “is that Seán FitzPatrick Station should be just the start of it. We should be naming all sorts after these chaps. Hospitals, for instance. Yes, all these wonderful hotels with no one in them. Let the HSE take them off the hands of Nama and fill them with sick people. There you are: thousands and thousands of private wards suddenly available at the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen.

Honor looks at me. She’s like, “Is my grandad drunk?” How do you answer a question like that from a five-year-old girl? “He certainly sounds off his tits to me,” I end up going.

“There’s been too much finger-pointing,” he tries to go. “Too many people playing the blame game. Not enough people coming up with solutions to get us out of this predicament in which we’ve found ourselves, through no one individual’s fault of course . . .”

“Well, you’ve announced your intention to run for public office,” the interviewer manages to go. “What ideas do you have to resuscitate the economy?”

“The first thing I intend to do,” he goes, “once elected, is introduce a scheme that will allow people who are moving house to take their postcodes with them.”

“Take their postcodes with them?”

“Yes. There are a lot of people being affected by this current economic business, many of them good people – solicitors, auctioneers and so forth. Lots of people having to sell their homes and trade down. Well, this initiative would allow someone who is forced to move from, for instance, Dublin 6 into a house in – God forbid, but it does happen – Dublin 24 to continue using the Dublin 6 postcode, thus ensuring a softer landing. You see, we have to do something for the victims of this thing.”

I ring Sorcha back. I’m like, “How could you let him go on banjoed? You’re supposed to be, like, his campaign strategist?”

She’s like, “Oh my God, you are so politically naive, Ross. He’s faking it. People like to see the softer, more human side to their politicians. You watch his personal rating soar.”

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