When The Wolfe Tones are bigger than Rihanna and a TD called Michael Collins is trying to torpedo Fine Gael, you know you are living in strange times.
Yes folks, welcome to the first few weeks of 2020 – a year that’s set to continue the recent trend of Ireland losing the run of ourselves altogether.
Leo Varadkar and Charlie “Sure The Tans Weren’t All Bad” Flanagan are dragging their Government towards an election where one of the main concerns for voters could be – and you couldn’t make this up – was your grandad burnt-out by the Auxies?
The bonkers plan to “commemorate” the Royal Irish Constabulary, the force that strong-armed our ancestors on to famine ships, assassinated Lord Mayors and gave us the Black and Tans, has caused the strangest ruction yet in modern Irish politics.
It was an offensively dumb idea on so many levels from the start.
And Leo Varadkar should be ashamed of himself for trying to equate the commemorating of the Irish who fought in World War I with paying our respects to a paramilitary police force that tried to deny the democratic will of the Irish for freedom with boot, bullet and fire.
Yes, the official state recognition of the 200,000 Irishmen who fought in WWI was shamefully late. But it was the right thing to do.
But you can’t equate the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (and 36th Ulster Division) that fought on the Somme with the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Tans and Auxiliaries – even if many of the latter were ex-soldiers.
Any attempts to claim that the backlash to the RIC commemora- tion shows that Irish people are not mature enough to put the past behind us is what political historians would term, “Utter bollix”.
Worse than that, it’s an insult to the intelligence and the generosity of ordinary Irish people. That was what the Government got wrong and continued to get wrong until they finally saw sense.
The issue is not who shot who in 1920. It’s about a dumb, offensive idea that sought to white-wash rish history – which then became a stick for Fine Gael to beat people over the head for not being “forgiving” enough.
We can have the debate on a united Ireland and the place of those from the loyalist tradition within it – but we also have to be honest about our complex, brutal history because that is what brought us to where we are today.
So now we go into an election that should be about the health service, the housing crisis and the struggle of working people to keep their heads above water and the first few weeks could be about the Black and fecking Tans.
But at least we got Come Out Ye Black And Tans to No1 in the UK charts.
And lads, whatever your views on the War Of Independence – you’ve got to admit that’s a solid tune.
