Sinn Fein is all about the best interests of Sinn Fein
AS they gathered for the funeral of ‘Big Bobby’ Storey (the man described by Gerry Adams as “one of the funniest people I know”), many members of the republican ‘family’ would have been aware that the Brexit government was about to officially end Freedom of Movement.
And when you add this to the other things the Brexiters have been doing, it was clear that for all his efforts to bring down the Brits, not even that gas character Big Bobby could match the damage done by English nationalists such as Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg and Mark Francois.
Indeed there was a clear confluence of interests too, when Sinn Fein refused to lift a finger to help old Ireland take down Brexit, by voting against it at Westminster.
Some felt that this was due to their allegiance to the IRA, but it was also due to the fact that Sinn Fein would have more to gain anyway from the chaos of Brexit, and the worse Brexit the better.
None of which would be in the best interests of Ireland — but then Sinn Fein is mainly concerned with the best interests of Sinn Fein, which is almost never the same thing.
They provided an illustration of this with their virus-friendly display at the funeral, departing from some of the guidelines which in other situations they might be recommending to the general public.
Come to think of it, many Brexiters with their sneaky German passports and the like, have made their own arrangements — rising above their own prescriptions for the greater good.
Nationalists... they’re gas characters all right.
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Many areas of the manufacturing sector are under pressure — but last week it emerged that the problems will be especially acute in an area which has received little attention so far...
I’m talking about the makers of musical instruments, and within that sector it is the violin makers who will be facing the most daunting challenges.
As each new day brought another tragic story of a Fianna Failer denied his heart’s desire to be a minister or even a junior minister, you started to feel the pain too of those wonderfully skilled craftsmen and women who are now faced with the task of making Ireland’s smallest violin.
Because only the smallest violin in Ireland — nay, in the whole world — could adequately convey the sadness of what we were hearing from the devastated Fianna Failers.
I know there’s a fine tradition of violin-making in this country — but even a normal-sized violin is not easy to get right.
How then, after making an incredibly small instrument on which to play a lament for Dara Calleary’s thwarted ministerial ambitions, could you make an even smaller one for
Jim O’Callaghan and his righteous refusal of a junior ministry?
Our violin makers are good — but nobody’s that good.