Leo is not a natural-born eejit, but he learns fast

THE true eejit can never resist the novelty sock. Though eejitry in general is an intangible thing, perhaps the one thing we know for sure is that the eejit has never been born who could walk away from a pair of novelty socks.

The opportunity which it offers for a “funny” moment completely lacking in wit or cleverness or indeed any of the essential ingredients of that which is actually funny, has drawn eejits of every description to the novelty sock with a power that renders them quite helpless.

Which is not to say that everyone who plumps for the novelty sock is an eejit. In our pioneering work in this area, we have endeavoured at all times to explore the many subtleties of the condition — to allow for whatever anomalies may exist in individual cases, to acknowledge the marvellous efforts being made every day by so many Irishmen and women, to try to exercise some control over this thing which we call the Inner Eejit.

So when we see the Taoiseach wearing novelty socks with a Canadian theme, bonding with Justin Trudeau, we know that he is doing what an eejit would do in the circumstances. And yet in the difficult and complex case of Mr Varadkar, though the evidence seems overwhelming, instinctively we hesitate.

We saw how his recent Love Actually riff at Downing Street was perhaps wrongly defined as eejitry, when in fact the true eejit would probably not have confessed to being in awe of his surroundings in Downing Street, without adding some little “Irish” quip — “sure this place is big enough for a game of hurling”.

We did not rush to judgment there. We preferred to see it as the effervescence of a man understandably excited to be in a better place than he’d ever imagined he might be, when he signed up for Young Fine Gael (though let us bear in mind that any person who could join Young Fine Gael in the first place, has probably developed a certain immunity from all forms of embarrassment).

And making every allowance as we must in a matter of such seriousness, it has also been evident in his career so far that Varadkar is perhaps not what we would call a natural-born eejit.

Certainly he would not have the wild native gift of Enda Kenny in this area — those pure instincts which enabled Enda at the height of his powers to whip out an invisible guitar at the Springsteen gig, and to play it right there in the VIP enclosure.

You either have that in you or you don’t.

And his alleged enthusiasm for the Irish language, which has for long been the calling card of the eejit in Irish politics, may be more a matter of environment than of nature — he is upper middle class, and with them the language is strong. It is never spoken, of course, but it is strong.

But even if it’s not in one’s nature, eejitry can be learned too, and it would seem that Leo is learning all too quickly.

That he is going there somewhat in the manner of the politician who still has all his own hair, but who is starting to train it to look like a toupee, out of deference to the innate falseness which he perceives to be the dominant theme of the culture in which he finds himself. So we have a most interesting case here. Of a Taoiseach who may not be an eejit of the first degree, but who seems to be increasingly capable of acts of unmitigated eejitry such as this novelty sock episode — as if he knows he is lacking in natural talent in this area, but is prepared to make up for it with enthusiasm.

Not that we want to discourage displays of individuality, to steer a man away from his personal style, as such. We have a President who is always expressing himself in ways that are entirely his own, but which are somehow not the ways of the eejit — most likely this is due to his life-long tendency towards introspection, which as we know is anathema to the eejit, who will never give himself over to a long period of reflection, when he can come straight back at you with a line like, “you and whose army?” or “I believe you, thousands wouldn’t”.

Or when he can just be getting one up on you, with his hilarious socks.

In the mind’s eye, it is hard to visualise a Taoiseach of bygone days, a Sean Lemass or a de Valera, ostentatiously sporting a pair of novelty socks, sitting there with the Prime Minister of Canada, drawing the attention of the press corps to the fact that in choosing his look for the day, he has smuggled in these inherently humorous images of the maple leaf and the Mountie.

Yet we should not be fooled into thinking that just because such men appeared to shun the outward expressions of it, they were somehow lacking in eejitry. On the contrary, their immersion in Irish nationalism and fundamentalist religion placed them in the very highest echelons of the Eejitariat. Varadkar is not there yet. But he is playing a dangerous game here, one of which the poet Patrick Kavanagh spoke in another context, when he said that a man dabbles in something… and finds that it becomes his life.

‘It is hard to imagine a Sean Lemass or a de Valera sporting a pair of novelty socks...’