HARDIMAN and Dunphy doesn't quite have the ring of a comic double act and, anyway, the senior counsel made it clear he wasn't interested in a new career.
"You'll have to work without a straight man, Mr Dunphy," he warned, as the defendant in the Proinsias De Rossa libel action began his second day on the stand with a string of one liners designed to illustrate how little influence his column had.
"I spent 10 years trying to persuade the Irish people that Jack Charlton was no good. He became a national hero," said Mr Dunphy, to laughter. The same reverse Midas touch turned Mary Robinson into the most popular person in Ireland, he added to more chuckles, and had helped Roddy Doyle become "the most acclaimed novelist in islands."
But he was only warming up. "Fianna Fail have begged me not to endorse Bertie Ahern," he continued, and, waiting for the amusement to subside, added: "The best thing that could happen to you, Mr Hardiman, is to get on the wrong side of me. It could make you a national hero."
It may not have been wise, but it was certainly reminiscent of Morecambe. Adrian Hardiman was almost alone in the courtroom in remaining unamused, and his refusal to play the straight man left the defendant undaunted. The question he had to ask more often than any other yesterday was: "Are you finished?"
When he did get a word in, it was usually edgeways. This was true in more ways than one when he asked the defendant if he knew the meaning of the term "hatchet job", and if he had ever posed "with a hatchet, running your hand up and down the blade?"
From a senior counsel, such a question can only be a rhetorical one and, sure enough, Mr Dunphy was already being handed the Hot Press cover on which he had so posed. The term "hostage to fortune" came to mind, but the defendant had clearly been trained in hostage negotiation.
The pose was a justifiable satire on his popular image as the "Sunday Independent's boot boy," he said. It was "self deprecating" and "ironic". It demeaned him but it was entered into willingly in the interests of free speech. In short, he could take it as well as dish it out.
One of Mr Dunphy's repeated themes is his refusal to be intimidated, but others around him are having to hold their nerve, too. During one animated exchange yesterday, he knocked a glass over the ledge separating him from the court stenographer, who may have a case for danger money. Indeed, sitting in the press box at this trial is like reporting from Tirana without a flak jacket.
The former Sunday Tribune editor, Vincent Browne, grimaced in the box as he heard himself described as "power crazy". Mr Dunphy giggled "Sorry, boys" after a reference to "shitty papers like the Star." Then, reading another excerpt from the Hot Press interview, which referred to Gay Byrne and Pat Kenny, including a seven letter f-word as their middle names, he was asked by counsel if he'd like to add Joe Duffy to the list. Joe Duffy smiled edgily, as everybody else wondered where the next shell would land.
Mr Hardiman scored some palpable hits. He reminded the defendant of his recent comments that there was a "cancer" in the Sunday Independent, "pernicious" and "evil". He also pointedly contrasted Mr Dunphy's treatment of others in the Hot Press interview with his relatively benign handling of Independent Newspapers chairman, Dr Tony O'Reilly.
But at the end of what the judge called "a day of hard pounding", it was Mr Dunphy who launched the last attack. The point of the case was to intimidate him and his newspaper, he said. But looking directly at Mr De Rossa, he continued: "We're not going to be intimidated by this very powerful Cabinet Minister, who should have better things to do."
