The Last Straw: It's been an exciting month for Patrick Kavanagh. Only two weeks ago he had his literary trail formally unveiled by Miss World (a fantasy we've all had at one time or another) at a ceremony in Monaghan. Then, last Wednesday, he turned up on the front page of the Irish Independent, this time peering out from behind a barefoot, smiling young woman, who was perched on his lap, writes Frank McNally.
Unfortunately, with the luck that dogged his career, Kavanagh's new-found sexiness comes at a time when he's been dead for 37 years. So it was only his canal-bank statue peering out of the photograph. And we can only wonder what he would have made of being sat on by PD local election candidate Wendy Hederman, who was having her feet washed by Liz O'Donnell while two other candidates, exposed from the ankles down, waited their turn. It's not the sort of thing you see a lot around Iniskeen.
Another thing we can only wonder about is what exactly the PDs were trying to say here. Ostensibly, the candidates were footsore after a hard campaign - I get that bit. But there's always a policy-related message to these photo opportunities, however tenuous the link, and I'm determined to work out what it was without having to ring the PDs and ask.
The reference to Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Jesus is worrying, to say the least. As Luke 7:37 puts it coyly, Mary "had a bad name in the town". But Luke also reminds us that the original foot-washing incident took place in the house of Simon the Pharisee, who berated Jesus and Mary Magdalene about the expensive ointment used. Surely in that whole Pharisee-versus-tax-collector argument, the PDs - with their opposition to tax-and-spend socialism - would be on the Pharisees' side? It just doesn't make sense.
Kavanagh also featured, less sexily, in this week's Leaving Cert English exam. That was one question I didn't have to worry about, at least. But I bet many voters in yesterday's elections will have experienced exam-related flashbacks when they turned up at their local school and were presented with up to four different-coloured papers.
Next time we have such a complex election, I must remember to suggest that the newspaper's education staff run an advice column for voters. It might go something like this:
1. Get a good night's sleep beforehand.
2. Don't cram. If you haven't studied all the candidates' literature, don't try to do it the night prior to the election. You'll only make yourself more stressed and you won't remember the stuff anyway.
3. Try to get to the hall early, so you have time to compose yourself.
4. Read all the papers carefully and allocate an amount of time for each.
5. Make some attempt on all papers. It's better to cast a few preferences on each, than to go through the Euro candidates conscientiously, 1-15, and then find you have no energy left for the town council.
6. Do not, in any circumstances, write your name on the paper.
7. If you answer incorrectly on the referendum, like Nice, don't worry: there's always the repeats.
Thankfully, yesterday's questions were all multiple-choice format. The Dublin Euro paper was hard enough - Royston or Eoin? Proinsias or Ivana? Gay or Straight? - without being asked to "discuss, supporting your arguments with examples from the text". By contrast, the Leaving Cert students who had to choose two poems representing "the essential Kavanagh" had it easy. But the important thing yesterday was to vote. And now that the electorate has performed its duty, we must hope the candidates show the same enthusiasm for going to the poles and taking all those posters down.
If I had to choose the two poems, by the way, I'd pick the canal bank sonnets. Partly because, after this election campaign, I'm really looking forward to what Kavanagh called "the tremendous silence of mid-July". But mostly because I've just re-read his line about the "green waters of the canal pouring redemption for me", and I now realise what the PDs were at the other day.
Even as they performed the last stunt of a campaign that plumbed new depths, they were asking for our forgiveness. This is why Liz O'Donnell generously cast herself in the role of sinner, although she wasn't even a director of elections. Maybe the reason she used canal water to wash the feet - rather than her own tears, as Mary Magdalen did - is that she expected tears to be supplied by the reader, as he or she wept for the state to which democracy had been reduced. That's my theory anyway.
I'd explain it further, but I have to hand my paper up now.