Finn McRedmond: Reaction to Matt Barrett’s quips speaks volumes about the great British sense of humour

Apparently the Anglo-Irish relationship – forged over decades of careful diplomacy and centuries of shared history – has taken a serious blow thanks to some, er, Instagram stories.

Leo Varadkar and his long-term partner Matt Barrett attended the coronation of King Charles III two weeks ago, where Barrett was caught firing off some lighthearted gags about the ceremony over his private Instagram story. Barrett – who ignored the coronation programme’s requests to turn off mobile devices – likened the ceremony to something out of Harry Potter; joked that he was accidentally about to be crowned King of England; and took particular delight in the Right Rev James Newcome, also known as Clerk of the Closet. “Had this job until my early 20s,” he cracked.

Without wishing to be glib, the Anglo-Irish relationship is probably resilient enough to weather this one.

Nevertheless, Barrett was criticised by the Spectator for acting like “a petulant teenager”. The Mail claimed there was “outrage” at his juvenile quips. And, the Irish designer Paul Costelloe condemned his posts as “very embarrassing” and “highly insulting”. Embarrassing, maybe. But highly insulting? Have we lost total grasp on the basic functions of the English language?

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This is a very low threshold for such extreme language. And Barrett’s critics ought to be careful. All we achieve by confecting outrage is removing our credibility to be actually outraged at the moments where it really matters.

Barrett has since apologised, reflecting on his “poor judgment”. Even that seems excessive. Because using a phone when asked not to is at its very worst a little bit impolite. It is far from a diplomatic incident, and further still from anything warranting an apology. Any accusation of serious insult or injury committed at his hands is, frankly, lunacy. And besides, his joke about the Clerk of the Closet was a pretty good one.

Perhaps as the partner of the Taoiseach he ought to have exercised greater prudence. But he wasn’t at a funeral. The coronation is still serious – though it may not look like it to outside observers on the other side of the Irish Sea. But serious things can still be viewed with levity. When, exactly, did everyone become anti-jokes? Whatever happened to that famed British sense of humour?

[ ‘Red faces in Ireland’: British media responds to Matt Barrett’s coronation Instagram posts ]

[ Miriam Lord’s Week: Who’s the joker sending Insta-quips during the king’s coronation? ]

There are a few cautionary tales in this whole thing. When you put the partner of a politician into the role of a diplomat – if even only for the duration of a coronation ceremony – things are liable to go wrong. And, perhaps, we should all be a little more careful when we assume our online communication will stay private. Thanks to the pernicious modern technology of the screenshot, our expectations of privacy are a little murkier.

But actually, this incident is indicative of something more serious. Barrett was simply the latest victim of the extreme prurience that has slowly been creeping into Irish society. We are witnessing something odd unfold: the public don’t just want to see private communication between individuals, many feel as if they have a right to see it. And, the semi-professional moral crusaders in our ranks are unashamed to display excessive concern with the personal lives of those around them. The Instagram page of the partner of a leader has little if anything to do with anyone but him.

We have seen this disposition before, of course. The curtain-twitching of the lockdown era perhaps was the apogee of the phenomenon – peering over garden fences to make sure rules were obeyed, chastising young people for relaxing with friends on the banks of the canal. We saw it too with the fuss over Varadkar’s (legal) attendance at the Mighty Hoopla Festival in London two summers ago amid ongoing Covid restrictions in Ireland. We saw it outside of Ireland too: outgoing premier of Finland, Sanna Marin, had to apologise after a video of her partying with her friends – in the manner any normal 34-year-old woman would – became a matter for public consumption. Who on earth would want to be in public life under these circumstances? Who would want to be the partner of someone in public life under these circumstances? Under surveillance and scrutiny beyond any reasonable measure.

It seems we have adopted all the worst instincts of a cartoonish neighbourhood watch troop. Quick to censure, quicker to moralise. . It’s all so priggish. We might think that none of this matters all that much. It might even be a good way to uphold proper behaviour in the common realm. I am not convinced.

Luckily, Barrett’s messages have by and large been treated with exactly the level of seriousness they deserve, which is: not very much at all. It’s important to stay on the right side of that line.