THE Pantomime season may have ended but the political drama of Dáil life is about to recommence, writes MICHAEL PARSONS...(with apologies to J.M. Synge).
SCENE: The Dáil Bar, late at night. A young man wearing a black caubeen nervously enters and announces: “The blessing of God on this place.”
No one takes a blind bit of notice. He approaches the bar and says: “I’d trouble you for a glass of porter, woman of the house.”
“I’m sorry, excuse me please, my English is not so good,” replies a charming Polish barmaid. “Did you say,‘A double vodka and Red Bull’?”
Beverley Flynn, seated on a bar stool, can’t help overhearing. “You’re one of the tinkers, young fellow, is beyond camped in the Sandyford Industrial Estate?”
“Deed and I’m not” he retorts indignantly, “I’m after travelling all the way up from Kerry. The name’s Healy-Rae. Michael Healy-Rae. I’m a councillor below in the Kingdom.”
Beverley (playfully): “You must have had great people in your family, I’m thinking, with that kind of a quality, double-barrelled name, the like of what you’d find on the great powers and potentates of perfidious Albion.”
Michael (proud as punch): “We did surely. Sure isn’t my Da a walkin’ legend?”
Beverley: “Mine too. Let you stop a short while anyhow. Aren’t you destroyed walking with your feet in bleeding blisters, and your whole skin needing washing like a Wicklow sheep?”
Michael: “It’s a nice room here, and if it’s not humbugging me you are, I’m thinking that I’ll surely stay.”
Beverley (mischievously): “Is it your first time up in the big smoke?”
Michael (offended): “Ha! You think I never left my own parish till Tuesday was a week? I’ll have you know I won Celebrities Go Wild on RTÉ and I’ve been on the Late Late Show and Up For the Match and The Restaurant, where the likes of Tom Doorley and Paolo Tullio went stone mad for my nettle soup and black pudding with roasted hazelnuts. And it’s from Montrose I’m after coming now where I’m worn out after a day rehearsing for the All-Ireland talent show with the likes of Gráinne Seoige and Daithi Ó Sé.”
Beverley: “Ah, go on, you’d see the like of them stories on any little paper of a Munster town. You’re as full of talk and streeleen, I’m thinking, as Noel Grealish. So what brings you here?”
Michael (lowering his voice) : “I’ve told my story no place till this night, Beverley and it’s foolish I am to be here, maybe, to be talking free, but you’re decent people, I’m thinking, and yourself a kindly woman, the way I wasn’t fearing you at all. There’s no future in being an Independent so I’ve a mind to run for Fianna Fáil in the next general election.”
Beverley (radiantly):“If that’s the truth, we’ll be burning candles from this day out to the miracles of God that have brought you from the south today. Another sinner repented. Didn’t I return to the fold myself as well as the Blayney bucko from above in the wild and hungry hills of Donegal North-East. We’ll do our all and utmost to content your needs. And ‘tis new blood we’re wanting surely now after Joe Behan below in Wicklow and the bold Dr McDaid have left us perilous short”.
ENTER the Widow O’Rourke: “Not so fast, Beverley. Isn’t it the Chief Whip and the Ceann Comhairle I’m after meeting below, who told me of your curiosity man? [Turning to Michael]: “There’s no vacancy here, I’ll have you know. We’ve found a candidate for Kerry South – a cousin of the Bull O’Donoghue – so we’ve no need for another turncoat to come slithering back”.
Beverley (angrily, to the Widow O’Rourke): “Whisht I’m saying; we’ll take no fooling from your like at all. It’s true the Lord God formed you to contrive indeed. Doesn’t the world know you sold the people a blind pup with those Telecom shares, so that the Lord Bishop of Connaught himself was nearly driven into the Poor House? And lost your seat once to the saxophone-playing Senator with the quare hair?”
Michael (shocked): “Saints of glory! Holy angels from the throne of light!”
Beverley: “What ails you?”
Michael: “It’s the walking spirit of me Da. I could have sworn he was back in Kilgarvan.”
Widow O’Rourke:“Is it that tramper?”
Jackie Healy-Rae (wildly, to Beverley): “Oh, it’s a class act you are surely. Haven’t you some brass neck trying to steal away my boy. Amn’t I a great wonder to think I’ve traced him to this place. We’ll have no more of this foolish talk. My son and myself will be going our own way, and we’ll have great times from this out telling stories of the villainy of Leinster House and the fools is here. [To Michael] Come on now and we’ll hit the road. ’Tis many a mile of pot-holed byways and bypasses that lie ahead.”
Michael (to his Da): “Go with you, is it? I will so, for I see that there’s no place for us in Fianna Fáil.”
He turns to address the others:“And as God and Mary and St Patrick are my witnesses, ye’ll see me here in three years’ time.”
The Ceann Comhairle: “By the will of God, we’ll have peace now for our drinks. What are ye having, ladies?”
Beverley (hitting him a box on the ear): “Quit my sight.”
She puts her shawl over her head and breaks out into wild lamentations: “Oh my grief, we’ve lost him surely. We’ve lost a great potential backbencher and the only Playboy of the Western World.”