Miriam Lord: Murphy’s audacity is not without precedent

It’s been a very frustrating week, to be honest. Thwarted at every hand’s turn. With Wimbledon on the horizon, we thought it might be nice to begin with a suitably themed limerick. But for some reason, people were afraid to read it and kept running away:

“There once was a fella called Denis.

Who thought he was brilliant at tennis.

He owned most of the balls

And made all the line calls

But his wild backhand smash was a menace

You’d miss Seamus Heaney all the same.”

So we returned to work on our acclaimed rolling history of Wanderly Wagon. It's been so well-received that Catherine Murphy TD decided to read some of it into the Dáil record on Thursday. She chose the chapter where O'Brien (a portly gent in a loud check suit) complains to Judge (an amiable dog) about Grandma (tough old bird) telling tales out of school, and then sets Mr Crow (extensive knowledge of the law) on her.

But while Catherine could read it in, it seems nobody could read it out for fear of Mr Crow. Which was very frustrating, because we always thought the national parliament affords absolute privilege to speakers and those who accurately report them.

To calm our nerves, we went out to O’Briens for a sandwich – not the well known and very excellent chain, but an alarmingly precious outlet beside Leinster House, located at the Kildare Street injunction. We ordered beef cheek and supreme of chicken’s neck, sliced Moneymaker tomatoes, added unbelievably light mayonnaise for interest on a Maltese bap. It really stuck in the craw.

And now, to cap everything, the June bank holiday has been redacted, sorry, cancelled, because Judge and Mr Crow are banning the use of the work “bank”. A most frustrating week.

By the way, Catherine Murphy’s audacity in reading material into the record of Dáil Eireann has a precedent dating back to November 1942, when senators got themselves in a lather about an allegedly dirty book.

Eric Cross's The Tailor and Ansty was the saucy story of a tailor, Tim Buckley, who lived with his wife Ansty in Gougane Barra in Cork. It included a memorable exchange between them about a woman who did not quite understand the difference between a bull and a cow.

The book achieved notoriety when senator Sir John Keane used it and two others to bolster his motion that the minister for justice should sack the members of the Censorship of Publications Board. Keane insisted on quoting from the book.

A scandalised Professor Bill Magennis suggested that, before he read any further, “an instruction should be given to the official reporters not to record it. Otherwise, we shall have some of the vilest obscenity in our records, and the Official Reports can be bought for a few pence.”

As a result of this, the official record contains the line “Here the Senator quoted from the book” instead of the actual passages.

Does this fate await poor Catherine? We hope we’re not giving You Know Who any ideas . . .

Now Averil’s gone, there’s something about Mary

She wasn’t wanted in 2011. But now that Mary White is the only woman in the village, the lads in Fianna Fáil are delighted with her.

The straight talking South Dublin politician was on Micheál Martin’s hit list after the last general election when he embarked on a process of “renewal” within the party, starting with a cull of some of its longest serving Senators.

But the dinosaurs weren’t quite ready for extinction. Their new leader had put together a list of 10 candidates he hoped his troops would support for the new Seanad.

Most had been unsuccessful in the general election but they were young and somewhat removed from the despised regime which had just been dismissed in such spectacular fashion by an angry electorate. High up on that list was Averil Power.

Headquarters reckoned a stint in the Upper House would up the profile of these candidates and set them up for another Dáil run when, with any luck, the public might have moved on to hating the new lot.

Micheál sent a message to his public representatives at national and local level “respectfully asking electors to give their highest vote” to his chosen ones while indicating he would like the outgoing incumbents to leave the stage.

Not a chance. Mary White, typically, came out with all guns blazing, declaring the move short-sighted and “undemocratic, basically”. People should be chosen to sit in the Seanad based on their experience, she argued, before throwing herself into the campaign.

“The Senate was never meant to be used to get experience for people wanting to go into the Dáil. I think we need diversity, but we can’t all be the same age.”

“Hear hear!” cried her chronologically challenged colleagues, never short of a good welcome for themselves.

Indeed, both Mary and Labhrás Ó Murchú (another unrepentant oldie) tried to run for President the following year, having defied him and secured themselves another Seanad term. Only five of the 10 on Micheál’s list made it to the Seanad. Power was one of them, but this week she joined the ranks of the Independents.

The socially liberal White has worked hard in the Upper House. She does her own thing and, as it was with Power, would be viewed as something of a curiosity by the FF lads’ clique.

Last year she announced she would be seeking a nomination to run for the Dáil. “As many of you know, I am no shrinking violet when faced with a challenge.”

In March, the woman her party leader wanted to bow out of politics in 2011 won a resounding victory at her selection convention in the Goat Inn.

The 69-year-old businesswoman was elected on the first count, defeating young whippersnappers Shay Brennan and barrister Liam Dockery. They must have been delighted in headquarters. But that’s women for ya.

Homeless in Leinster House

One unexpected casualty of Averil Power’s departure from Fianna Fáil is Renua’s recently appointed media man and strategist, John Drennan. The former Sunday Independent columnist has fallen victim to what might be termed a pre-occupation eviction, just when it seemed like his search for an office in Leinster House was at an end.

The powers that be in Kildare Street were trying to find accommodation for Drennan and had earmarked an office for him in the Leinster House 2000 complex. However, they decided to hold on to the keys until after the Carlow-Kilkenny byelection in case the winner might have a more pressing claim to the coveted space.

By Saturday night, it was clear Fianna Fáil’s Bobby Aylward would be returning to the Dáil and his party’s accommodation bloc. So the way looked clear for Lucinda’s anointed handler to move his bibelots into a room allocated to the non-aligned contingent.

But on Monday morning, Senator Power cashed in her chips with Micheál Martin. She was told to sling her hook by FF whip Seán Ó Fearghaíl and by Tuesday was ensconced in the office.

Still. It could be worse. The former commentator isn’t wandering the corridors. Since his appointment, Drennan (who bakes very nice cakes in his spare time) has been sharing a temporary billet with veteran Wicklow TD and former Fine Gael stalwart Billy Timmins.

It’s snug with the two of them there, by all accounts. But we’re sure they get on like a house on fire.

Priestly quintet get the full Dáil experience

A gang of priests was discovered roaming the corridors around the Dáil chamber on Wednesday. Five of them in total, fully collared up but with one of them wearing a naval uniform and another wearing an army uniform.

Turns out they were Defence Forces chaplains, and Paul Kehoe, Minister of State at the Department of Defence, was giving them a guided tour of Government Buildings and Leinster House.

Politicians are instinctively drawn to priests. Priests know a lot of people, and politicians like to know people who know a lot of people. This meant that the five reverends made slow progress around the corridors of power.

The Fianna Fáil leader discovered he’d been to college with one of them. Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer, still flushed with the success of the Yes side in same-sex marriage referendum, recognised another from his days as a seminarian.

The priests started their tour in the Taoiseach’s office, where they temporarily dispensed with the notion of church-state separation and photographed each other sitting in Enda’s chair behind his desk.

The clerical quintet – Msgr Eoin Tynne, Defence Forces head chaplain, based at McKee Barracks in Dublin; Fr Jerry Carroll, Air Corps (Baldonnel); Fr Bernard McCay-Morrissey (Aiken Barracks, Dundalk); Fr Des Campion, Naval Service (Haulbowline) and Fr Seamus Madigan (Sarsfield Barracks, Limerick) – concluded their tour with a visit to the bar, followed by dinner in the members’ restaurant hosted by Paul Kehoe. The group finished eating in time to get up to the chamber and witness the 10.30pm vote.

And that was enough to send them back to the bar, where Peter Mathews took the opportunity to present them with a copy of his conscience clause Bill and earnestly engage on its contents. As is his wont. At least their reverend fathers can now say they got the full Dáil experience.