MacCool

Drowning men: Chappaquidick and the Children of Lir

In a speech George Mitchell told everyone to condemn Irish defence. In a separate speech Ted Kennedy asked people to remember the British were not entirely innocent in the violence stakes and Mitchell McLaughlin breathed a collective sigh on relief on behalf of the Provisional leadership.

Later, during an interview with this reporter, Mitchell McLaughlin explained the position as he saw it. “Ted came through for us.” Mitchell paused to sniff in a characteristic way. “You see there were those doubting Thomases who said he wouldn’t come through for us. That he’d do another Chappaquidick if our heads went below water. Nonsense! The ghost of Chappaquidick is finally exorcised,” he said. “There we were drowning men and Ted threw us a lifeline.”

“What about George Mitchell?” I asked.

“It’s not everyday one gets made a present of a teddy. Don’t spoil the moment for me,” McLaughlin said, petulantly. I left him there cuddling his new acquisition lovingly.

I hadn’t the heart to tell him that his new teddy had very sharp teeth which will be turned on him shortly.

A phone call to Belfast and I was talking to the Oracle, that all-seeing, all-knowing gentleman who has single-handedly led the people on a quest for the Holy Grail of Gombeenism ’97 style.

“You’re Uppityness,” I began reverently. “Ted Kennedy has been described as having thrown a lifeline to your party. Would you agree?”
“Ted is a very good friend of Ireland and of me too – even though I wasn’t invited to his party.”
“Do you think as Mitchell McLaughlin does that this makes up for his behaviour at Chappaquidick?”
“Elvis is alive, old-style Republicanism is dead and Chappaquidick was a Russian-inspired lie,” the Oracle said.

Well, what can you say to that except “have faith”.

THE CHILDREN OF LIR 1997

“We’ll give the people of Mid-Ulster an opportunity to show their feelings on the matter at the voting boxes,” she said.

However the grandmother, wise woman that she is, was thwarted. Not by the British government, not by the people of Mid-Ulster – but by the need for an imposed outside candidate to be given a British electoral mandate to speak for the people of Mid-Ulster – or so he claimed.

So the grandmother, our own Bernadette, loved by all, and her daughter Róisín and Róisín’s unborn baby must now wait to see if Britain’s election in Ireland will throw up political heroes or just make us all throw up!

Bernadette wouldn’t comment, well that’s the kind of woman she is. She’s been imprisoned, she didn’t complain, she’s been shot by British death squads, she didn’t whinge – this time she’s been kicked in the teeth by those who should be friends – but even if Bernadette Devlin McAliskey makes no comment history and the Irish people will judge harshly.

As for that wee descendant of Niall of the Nine Hostages about to be born to a mother held hostage in an English prison, we’ll all just have to say a wee prayer. Yes! You’re right, we have been praying for 800 years – and yes, you’re right again, Martin and Gerry and a few others said they would lead us to a new freedom – and yes, you’re right, we’ve been led to a situation where even a generation as yet unborn are being asked to pay the price for the mistakes of recent years.

Go eat the cake and drink the soup but here people are asking questions of you – and answers are slowly dawning. Around the homes of Mid-Ulster and further afield an unborn generation is lining up as cannon fodder for England’s war-machine – who will protect these children?
Or will they also be told there are more important issues at stake than the lives of a few Irish children?
The Proclamation of Independence says “ . . . cherish all of the children of the nation equally”. It seems in Mid-Ulster through the eyes of a chosen few there are some more equal than others.
— Mac Cool