Perhaps it was a mere coincidence, but it was an elegant coincidence, that the hotelier Eoin Dillon who died over the weekend was a Plunkett on his mother's side and he married a Stapleton. I knew his brother Michael and his sister Eilis, and they were recognisably of a distinct caste. The names tell us something about the caste - Dillon, Plunkett, Stapleton: Normans.
It is surely one of the curiously neglected truths of Irish life that the Anglo-Norman caste retained a covert identity and power not merely into this century, but into the present day. The popular memory does not actually record the history of this caste, instead labelling those who are inclined to belong to it either Fine Gaelers or Blueshirts or ranchers; and the complex history of this caste from the 17th century, and the racial and almost racist obsessions of the Gaelic revival a century ago, have made the origins of this distinct group within Irish life both obscure and unfashionable - hence the name, Fine Gael.
It is unlikely Fine Normanach would have the same appeal; but it would be a more accurate description of the caste, which has retained a culture of aloofness, of apartness and a certain inalienable right to land and law. Since the caste was not racially-based, it was able to assimilate Gaels into its ranks; likewise, Anglo-Normans became assimilated into gaeldom. But we know from the Confederation of Kilkenny that the two distinct groups remained identifiable in language, culture and social organisation. What they had in common were propinquity and creed: what divided them was a sense of self.
Self-confident tribe
This sense of self survived the penal days. The fine normanach remained the self-confident tribe of authority within organised Irish Catholicism.
Edmund Rice came from that caste. So did Nano Nagle. Clongowes was conjured into existence for its benefit. The social organisation of convents in particular, with their abominable two-tiers, reflected the twin-castes of Irish Catholic life.
To be Norman - or Fine Gael - does not necessarily mean posh and tweedy. But it probably does have implications for myth and lore. Such families would not have invoked Gaelic mythology as their own; Cuchulain was absent from the hearth-side yarns of Plunketts and Dillons and Bourkes. They would have learnt of recusant priests, of dispossession, of membership of an ancient tribe that was loftier by far than the base Cromwellian NCOs who with their bogus titles, fraudulent airs and their heretical creed were the reconstructed gentry of 18th century Ireland.
A conservative caste
Such a caste was of necessity deeply conservative. It retained its position within Irish life with jealous ardour. Its rural members were strong farmers. Its sons entered the professions and the church, the civil service and the British army. It had a view of the world which was both conditioned by its caste-disdain for the Gaelic majority (who were in time to call themselves Fianna Fail) and by the separate, un-Gaelic mentality of their hiberno-anglo-norman culture.
We know today that he Fianna Fail mind is quite unlike the Fine Gael mind, without being able to put our finger on the difference. That is why our political parties are curiously resistant to apostasy. Fianna Fail cannot convert to Fine Gael, nor vice versa.
It is not ideology which divides in Irish life, but mind and identity; confusingly, that identity does not call itself by what it is, but instead invokes heroes. Fine Gael's traditional hero is largely accidental and one most modern Fine Gaelers feel a little uncomfortable with: Michael Collins, whose life and death were marked last weekend in the largely mythic terms necessary for such occasions. Of course, at the commemorations at Beal na mBlath Sean Donlon did not say that Michael Collins was the man who introduced into Irish life the organised slaughter of unarmed men in front of their families, nor did he recall, as cited by Tim Pat Coogan, the 1922 pact "with the IRA to use force against the Northern Parliament in flagrant breach of the Treaty he was so desperately trying to uphold in the Provisional Government area."
Other, more suitable aspects of Collins were cited in accordance with current Fine Gael requirements: Collins the statesman, Collins the soldier, Collins the peacemaker, etc etc etc. This is merely myth-making. Fine Gaelers need the pol. cred. of a Collins-type figure, without the stark reality of what Collins did, which is deeply unFine Gael. Therefore launder and invent.
An accident of history
We know it was an accident of history which caused Collins to be Fine Gael. Had he stayed at home and Dev gone to negotiate in London, Dev would probably have been the founding hero whom Fine Gael commemorates - though he would have been far too canny to have been killed at Beal na mBlath, or anywhere else for that matter. Collins would, of course, have led the anti-Treaty forces and would either have been killed, so becoming a martyred hero of what was to become Fianna Fail, or would have gone on to be Taoiseach in the 1930s, to be replaced in time by his well-groomed assassin-protege, Sean Lemass.
These individuals do not count. They are the accidents of history. Both Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are parties of the tribe, the larger tribe of course providing the larger party. The last three Fianna Fail leaders - Lynch, Haughey and Ahern have Gaelic names (though Lynch can admittedly also be Norman). Fine Gael is still a family affair rooted in the Cosgrave-Fitzgerald-Costello-Bruton dynasties, of which three are of Anglo-Norman origin. Not, I suspect, a coincidence.