Modern Ireland or Paddy Varadkarry?

IN Washington DC, St Patrick’s Day celebrations are capped by dyeing green the water in the fountain on the south lawn of the White House. Hopefully today, the water is running clear, all the better to wash away the damage done to Brand Leo Varadkar over recent days and to a lesser extent, Brand Ireland.

Despite his apprehensions, the Taoiseach’s visit to Washington was going according to the masterplan on Thursday.

He pressed the flesh at the US Chamber of Commerce, launched his promotional video Global Ireland, of which more later; he was ushered into the Lion’s Den – aka the Oval Office – and pitched up at the Speaker’s Lunch on Capitol Hill.

And it was there, alas, over a few unscripted moments at a press conference that the Taoiseach came unstuck, exposing the extraordinary lack of spontaneity in his character and his poor social filter.

In one fell swoop, the impeccably middle-class Leo offended the delicate sensibilities of Wasp America by his lavatorial reference to ‘a piss-take’, while for the folks back home he aligned himself with the planning regime, a system embedded in the national psyche as endemically corrupt, by cheerfully admitting he’d made enquiries on behalf of Donald Trump to Clare county council.

I’m happy to take the credit, simpered the Taoiseach, explaining how Trump phoned him about plans for an unsightly windfarm, practically in the backyard of his swish golf complex in Doonbeg.

No sooner had the Taoiseach wrapped up his tale of derring-do than eyebrows were raised at this naked act of political lobbying by someone who has proudly professed contempt for the parish pump and the Irish way of doing business.

As the official description of the contact between the then Minister for Tourism and the county council shifted over the following day – he’d in fact asked tourism body Failte Ireland to assess whether the windfarm would have a negative affect on tourism in the area – questions were inevitably asked about whether Leo ‘the Stroke’ Varadkar had performed favours for more than one billionaire tycoon.

Fears were also expressed about the chances of the Taoiseach’s confession inviting a mammoth legal action by the thwarted windfarm developers.

But probably the most damning aspect of the revelation was not its substance – as Leo’s cheerleaders reminded us, it had already been put on the public record during his Time magazine interview – but his volunteering it in the first place.

The story of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing between Government and big business was wholly inappropriate for a trade summit; it reflected badly on the Taoiseach and on the country and was a clumsy distraction in what should be a crucial showcase for the country. Yet Leo’s proud-as-punch delivery showed that he was completely oblivious to the impact of his lack of tact.

All he had to do was shoot the breeze for a few seconds from the podium, something that was second nature to his predecessors Enda Kenny and Bertie Ahern.

But like a child overwhelmed at finding themselves in front of a quizzical authority figure, he spluttered the first thing that entered his head, while his face lit up in foolish relief at having acquitted himself so splendidly.

Youth, hipster credentials, a cosmopolitan background and a distance from the political, social and clerical sins of the past are an integral part of Brand Leo.

But the flip side of youth is immaturity, inexperience and often a gormless eagerness to please.

In Washington Leo showed those shortcomings, but he also betrayed a lack of emotional intelligence and

Bertie and Enda knew how to shoot the breeze

an inability to ‘read a room’ that is incongruous for a politician.

Empathy is the tool by which most politicians ply their trade but Leo, whip smart and precise, levers instead his almost robotic ability to absorb the minutiae of policy detail.

He is a polished media performer – once he has a script to hand or an abundance of facts at his fingertips. Deprive him of these supports however and he is, as we have just seen, about as awkward as a priest in a knocking shop.

The controversial Strategic Communications Unit has created unprecedented problems for the Government but it’s perhaps no surprise that it is the brainchild of a politician who often seems at a loss among ordinary people, who shows no flair for small talk or pleasantries, but a strong instinct to be instructive about what is right and what is wrong.

A leader who stands in front of a well-connected audience of Irish American businessmen and politicians and behaves as if his, as it turns out, misremembered account of pulling strings for Donald Trump is a piece of harmless whimsy could be described as out-of-sync and naive.

The same can be said for a leader who unveils a promotional video about his country, full of local references to Father Ted, Panti Bliss and the Late Late Toy Show and is still convinced that it will inspire an outpouring of envy abroad for his modern, inclusive and ruggedly beautiful country.

Global Ireland, the three-minute video which the Taoiseach launched in Washington had some of its audience scratching its head in bewilderment at what the slickly produced mosaic of images and music actually meant.

Much to Leo’s chagrin perhaps, its real target audience saw however that beneath its disguise, Global Ireland is simply a Governmentsponsored piece of propaganda aimed at the leader’s generation or younger, and calculated to channel their emotions into flurries of pride at the birth of a new national identity.

In Global Ireland the camera lens lovingly devours secular symbols and images while giving the metaphorical cold shoulder to traditional motifs of Mother Ireland and Mother Church, as well as emblems of our ancient mythology and heritage. It creates a new narrative for Ireland, a new national story, of a young and dynamic country, rather like its Taoiseach in a way, oozing a sophisticated modernity.

According to Global Ireland’s idealised view of the country, it is a diverse and inclusive paradise whose people are in thrall to rugby (inexplicably neither Gaelic football or hurling are portrayed in the video, while rugby features heavily), where goats and children run free and wild and the rich fertile land surrenders an abundance of organic produce.

The only masses in evidence in the montage of images are the vast turnouts for the Special Olympic opening ceremony or at Dublin Castle, bedecked in LGBT rainbow flags celebrating the Marriage Equality referendum.

In this wondrous place where we live, inclusion unfurls like a ribbon, binding the mainstream with the disabled and LGBT groups and the new Irish (a clip from a Citizenship ceremony is featured ) and on to the Third World whose ravenous peoples are shown in a segment, gratefully receiving sacks of grain stamped with the Government of Ireland logo.

An illuminated piece of art proclaims the incontrovertible slogan ‘Dare to Be Different’ although it’s hard to see just who is kicking against convention in a video where the gay rights activist Panti Bliss is surrounded by fawning acolytes in the style of religious prelates of old and President Higgins participates in an ancient pagan ritual, lighting a bonfire on a hillside for the festival of Bealtaine.

No wonder some Washington insiders were confused about the video’s mixed messages – on one hand the country looked a hippie haven for living off the grid in glorious self-sufficiency; on the other, it was an urban idyll for welleducated, right-on metropolitan sophisticates.

‘A tiny island with a massive heart,’ said the breathless narrator. ‘…we embrace anything and anyone.’ What larks.

Leo Varadkar should have had his marketing men unveil this reel of fabricated idiocy, rather than lend it his precious imprimatur.

A new Irish lifestyle and aspiration, mercifully released from the legacy of Catholicism and the spiritual pull of nationalism may have his wholehearted approval but he should see that in Global Ireland it becomes as clichéd and hollow as old-school Paddywhackery.

The Taoiseach’s excruciating tall tale to ingratiate himself with the unsavoury Donald Trump and a stirring but ultimately superficial video does little to dispel the lingering narrative that Leo is a politician more consumed by spin than a leader of real substance.

He showed a gormless eagerness to please Some were left scratching their heads