Well done to Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil for selflessly stepping into the sequinned breach on the night RTÉ will not be airing the Eurovision Song Contest.
They will bring some much-needed glitter to the night.
Plans for Saturday’s keynote Eurovision address have been leaked and we can reveal that the party will deliver an ardfheis spectacle to voters pining for their annual Marty Whelan fix.
Micheál will wear an all-in-one sparkly zip-up disco suit when he takes to the stage at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre, vindication for all those years working on his gut health and subsisting on egg whites, Kombucha and bananas in the Dáil canteen.
Jack Chambers is one of the backing dancers but this doesn’t make him Micheál’s puppet on a string.
An unofficial slogan for the extravaganza, which also celebrates the 100th anniversary of Fianna Fáil, seeped from the upper echelons this week after an embarrassing incident for the party in the course of a botched byelection canvass in Dublin Central.
Anyone But Bertie Ahern.
Or ABBA.
He won’t be Walking the Streets in the Rain anytime soon if head office has its way, but good luck with that.
As former leader, Bertie should be there. Early on Friday evening, as proceedings kicked off, there was no sign yet. Well, not at the ardfheis.
He popped up on social media, though, filmed coming out of his house to greet controversial candidate Malachy Steenson who was bustling down the drive to canvass him.
Ah, Jaysus.
Micheál can’t catch a break. He must be thinking: Why Me?
The way things are going, he might be happy to meet his political Waterloo sooner rather than later.
Hold Me Now, he will tell delegates. Don’t be swayed by Sinn Féin with their “All Kinds of Everything” approach to spending.
Stick with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Kids in Fianna Fáil. What’s Another Year with the Chance of a Lifetime European presidency about to start?
Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the rock ‘n’ roll kids of Fianna Fáil await the votes from the Eurovision Dublin Central jury. Photograph: Cillian Sherlock/PA Wire
The nation has serious choices to make.
If I Could Choose, prudent Micheál will croon to the faithful, he would chose to do something in terms of Ooh Aah … Just a Little Bit more money but in the long run this could mean nul points for the economy. People might think he is singing the Doomsday Blues, but we have to face reality. It’s Making Your Mind Up time now for some.
The people of Dublin and Galway will be voting in the byelections. Disregard the likes of Boom Bang a Bang celebrity criminal candidates like Gerry Hutch – he’s gangsta rap, not honest Eurovision.
Ding-a-Dong, this ardfheis is going to be a blast.
Sadly, pop sensation CMAT won’t be performing at it. She’s in the US. But she sent a message home for Bertie while onstage in Brooklyn on Thursday night.
He’ll be very impressed to get the few words all the way from New York – De Big Chapel.
CMAT recently took aim at the former taoiseach and “all the Berties” in a song about the aftermath of the financial crash back in 2008. This time, she zoned in on comments he made to a woman he was canvassing in Dublin Central. The woman was secretly recording him as he told her what he thought she wanted to hear about immigration.
This changes the rules for old-school canvassers who say almost anything to get voters onside.
CMAT saw the clip on the other side of the Atlantic.
“He’s trying to blame Ireland’s problems on immigration instead of himself. So allow me to be very clear when I say f**k that racist c**t.”
Bertie. He’s like the great uncle who turns up at Christmas (or on Eurovision night) and it’s all Congratulations and Celebrations until it isn’t …
ABBA.
Say nothing to Micheál in his bell-bottomed catsuit. He might fall off his platforms.
Citizen Shane
Nothing like a good row to help shift a new book.
And one was bubbling under nicely on Wednesday evening (more of that anon) when Pat Rabbitte, former minister for communications, launched the latest effort from another former minister for communications, Shane Ross, aka Winston Churchtown.
As it turned out, it would have been better to launch Saints, Scholars and Scandals – his “colourful account of the scandal-drenched history of Ireland’s national broadcaster” – on Thursday, when RTÉ’s latest “scandal” broke.
A large crowd gathered in Hodges Figgis bookshop in Dawson Street for the launch. But, despite many invitations winging their way to Montrose, nobody turned up from RTÉ, although some had replied confirming attendance.
Even director general Kevin Bakhurst, who loves to get out and about on these sort of occasions, didn’t make it. But then, Kevin must have been up to his eyes in Mooney’s Money back at base with the impending release of the salary details of RTÉ’s leading, eh, light-entertainment wildlife kingpin to the unbridled joy of headline writers across the nation.
Everyone’s going wild over Derek Mooney’s inclusion in RTÉ’s top 10 highest-paid presenters
The sudden appearance by the lesser-seen Derek Mooney on a revised listing of the organisation’s 10 highest-paid presenters sent RTÉ twitchers wild. It was facilitated by the twitchy executives in Donnybrook suffering from Post-Tubridy Stress Disorder who now live in mortal fear of Dáil committees making a holy show of them again.
There hasn’t been this much egg-citement around Derek Mooney since one of his blue tits laid an egg in Mary McAleese’s nesting box at Áras an Uachtaráin in 2008.
The wonderful thing about nature is its unpredictability.
Who would have known yesterday that the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) would decide to haul in the RTÉ suits for another grilling – this time over the decision to send 41 staffers to Prague for Ireland’s recent World Cup qualifier?
Or that the lesser-spotted Mooney’s “reclassification” would see him back in the top earners’ list (€202,000 last year) with an unseemly rush by the top brass to announce it. They’ll be walking on eggshells heading into that PAC meeting, hoping nobody mentions Mooneygate or says Derek’s salary is for the birds.
The drama came a little too early for Winston Churchtown’s book launch.
“Is there anybody here from RTÉ?” inquired Pat Rabbitte at the start of his speech.
He said he was very surprised to be asked do the launch as he would have expected the current Minister for Communications, Patrick O’Donovan, to perform the launch.
“Because I know he’s great pals with Shane.”
That went down well, because most of the audience was well aware that O’Donovan – then junior minister for sport on Winston Churchtown’s ministerial estate – and Ross were at constant loggerheads.
There may have been some mild mention of Bertie Ahern’s doorstep debacle during a byelection canvass in Dublin Central, but the former Taoiseach’s embarrassing remarks about unwelcome African migrants from places like the Congo was the big topic of conversation on the night.
But back to the actual row over the book.
Writer, columnist and former senator Eoghan Harris has had a long and colourful political history. The tempestuous Corkman has also been party to one or two blazing rows in his time. But one section of the former minister’s book has really infuriated him. It’s the bit where the English public school-educated Winston writes that Harris, back in the 1980s, asked him to join the Workers’ Party.
“Shane Ross’s book on RTÉ is full of factual errors and fantasies about me,” Eoghan tells us from deepest west Cork. “But the worst is his claim that I tried to recruit him – a former stockbroker – to the Workers’ Party. Given that party existed to rid Ireland of financial parasites, had I recruited Ross I would have been expelled – at the very least.”
It sounds far-fetched, right enough.
Finian McGrath – Shane’s Independent Alliance colleague and pal, was at the launch. We asked him about the yarn.
“Shane? In the Workers’ Party? Good luck! That’s a great one for a laugh.”
What does Winston Churchtown have to say about Harris’s very strong rejection of his assertion that he once tried to recruit him?
“He did, absolutely, emphatically,” he said. “He had produced a speech he wanted me to read into the record of the Seanad and it was full of Workers’ Party stuff. And his last remark, I remember it was a passing remark, was ‘my great ambition is to get you to join the Workers Party’.”
In the book, he writes of the Marxist “moving into conspiratorial mode” to whisper his request to the stockbroker.
What happened next?
“I went and had a large gin.”
That never happened, says Eoghan Harris.
“Fantasyland on page 175.”
Big hitters
From former Labour leaders launching books to the incumbent doing the same … Ivana Bacik did the honours for her colleague and former minister of state Liz McManus, whose fifth book was launched at in the Unitarian Church on St Stephen’s Green last Sunday.
We thought this might be a memoir about Liz’s time in national politics, but only because we misread the title and thought it was called “Tiny Bruisers”.
Not so.
“I was delighted to see former TDs coming together to enjoy the afternoon,” she tells us. “After all, we share a common history: the century of Irish independence which I explore in fictional form in Tiny Bruises.”
Liz McManus, who launched her book Tiny Bruises last Sunday. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
More than 200 people attended the launch, including a cross-party selection of former parliamentary colleagues Proinsias De Rossa, Mary Flaherty, Conor Lenihan, Olivia Mitchell and Nora Owen.
In a witty and pithy speech, Ivana praised the book while at the same time managing to name-drop the two Labour byelection candidates, Ruth O’Dea (Dublin Central) and Helen Ogbu (Galway West).
The foreword is written by former president Michael D Higgins and the book is published by Arlen House.
Thrill Bill
Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy certainly admires Richard Boyd Barrett’s fiery oratorical skills.
On a sleepy Thursday afternoon during a plodding debate on the Industrial Development Bill, there was a slight hiccup in the running order as the People Before Profit TD rose to speak.
Verona told him it wasn’t his turn.
“You’re ahead of yourself. We have Deputy Clendennen now …”
“He just appeared,” said RBB, in his defence.
“Yes, and with your indulgence, we have a crowd of ladies from Wexford in the Public Gallery, the rural Wexford ladies. You are most welcome,” said the Ceann, looking up at them. “You’re in for a thrill when Deputy Boyd Barrett starts to speak but before that, we are going to have Deputy John Clendennen.”
Poor John.
The Fine Gael TD for Offaly thanked the Chair for letting him speak in advance of Deputy Boyd Barrett.
“I hope I’ll be as entertaining,” he said before welcoming members of Daingean Development Association who were in Leinster House for a tour and might be in the Public Gallery at some stage in the day.
They do great work in the town, continued John. “They have a festival scheduled for the 14th of June and anyone who might want to attend …”
Verona gently interrupted.
“Do you mind me asking, for the benefit of the deputies following, will you be using all of your time?”