While it is generally agreed that the visits of Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama were great successes, the ugly aftermath continues to simmer in Leinster House. Government deputies have been bad-mouthing certain colleagues in the wake of her majesty’s visit, wondering why some TDs bagged a golden ticket to meet the Queen and they didn’t.
Why, for example, was first-time Labour deputy Michael McCarthy a guest at the banquet at Dublin Castle? A lot of political noses were put out of joint by the sight of the TD for Cork South West in his best bib and tucker shaking hands with the Queen before the banquet.
McCarthy tells us there is no big secret about how he managed to get his foot in the castle door. “I asked Eamon Gilmore straight out. My wife, Nollagh, had just had a baby, and I wanted her to have a special night out. I said I didn’t want any job from him, I wasn’t looking for a committee chairmanship, I just wanted my wife to meet the Queen. Just before the visit he got in touch and told me I was on the list but to say nothing to anybody.
“We had a marvellous night, and I told Eamon afterwards that it was more to me than a junior ministry.”
Meanwhile, they are not best pleased in Fine Gael either. The sight of Seán Kelly MEP sitting on the main platform at College Green on Monday, just metres from Barack Obama and slap bang in the middle of our television pictures, has annoyed many of his party colleagues.
Some are saying that he played the family card to get such a prominent position: Enda Kenny’s wife, Fionnuala O’Kelly, is his cousin.
Seán is hoping to get his party’s nomination for the presidency (who isn’t looking for a nomination these days?), and the fact that he was placed in such a high-profile position during Obama’s speech has prompted suspicious colleagues to ask if this signalled the leadership’s tacit approval for his candidacy. Mairead McGuinness, his rival in the presidency stakes, won’t have been happy.
Seán, a former GAA president, also managed to get his mug on television on a number of occasions during the Queen’s visit. As a result, he is being talked about as Fine Gael’s answer to the former Fianna Fáil senator Donie Cassidy, always superglued to his leader when a camera is in sight.
