By the end of the week, the Maurice McCabe affair was becoming something more trivial, it was becoming the Enda Kenny story.
The unpleasantness or – if you prefer to use the McCabes’ words – the systematic attacks “by agencies of the state” on citizens of the republic, which had been facilitated by some in the media, in an attempt to destroy them was being replaced by the game. And when the game is on, everybody comes to life.
Would Enda become the longest-serving Fine Gael Taoiseach? Would he get to Washington on St Patrick’s Day? Were Leo and Simon working together? These were the questions now consuming the political class, who reached for the nearest available cliché. They talked about the men in grey suits and how he who wields the dagger never wears the crown. They trotted out comforting bromides which indicate that we are deep into the game, and nothing will distract us now.
The question of what kind of state Ireland has become as revealed by the treatment of Maurice McCabe was for another day, maybe a day long into the future. Now it was time to talk about contenders, tacit agreements and to analyse Michael Ring’s suggestion that he might consider a leadership bid himself when truthfully nobody could give a flying fuck if Michael Ring was considering a leadership bid.
It was as if many commentators had been laid low by some terrible virus that made helpless and unable to talk about this matter in anything other than party political terms. They would have to wait for the fever to pass, but that could take some time and while it did, they would get plenty of rest and talk about the damage done to various politicians.
Of course, we always feel we are missing something when they pivot into their version of what did the president know and when did he know it. Those of us on the outside who haven’t been closely reading are the ones who feel the need to catch up.
I wasn’t sure what it meant when they breathlessly wondered if Jim O’Callaghan had told Frances Fitzgerald about Tusla before Prime Time was broadcast last week.
I had read several reports on the dispute and none of them stated what the significance was so I assumed it was so obvious, and I was so stupid, that I simply didn’t get it.
So I asked a couple of people smarter than me and they didn’t get it either.
Maybe they also simply don’t follow things closely enough, because this dispute was being seen as something at one stage that could bring down the government.
There is undoubtedly some significance in the talk of timelines, when ministers knew about certain events, and what they pointed out to certain other ministers.
The disputed conversations between Fitzgerald and O’Callaghan might have had some profound importance if Fitzgerald had not agreed to extend the terms of reference of the investigating commission, but she did.
All these incidentals cloud the chilling reality of Maurice McCabe’s ordeal. The sinister central truth is that so much of it is already known. There is a similarity with Hillsborough in the UK, as one of the most ominous aspects of the McCabe affair is what those who engaged in the smear felt they could get away with.
And the wider implications are that Irish people should be concerned about the power individuals within the Garda Síochána have to destroy them, and the queries raised about what those at the top of the force did and didn’t know about the smear campaign.
Post Brexit and Trump, many have warned about the dangers in demonising the political classes. With some justification, they point to the rise of Farage and the US president as evidence of what happens when the sombre politicians are opposed by those who do not play by the rules.
The problem is that the political class is so easy to demonise. In Ireland, there is a shuffling cast of indistinguishable mediocrities who demonstrate time and again their irrelevance when discovering where real power lies.
The lesson from Brexit and Trump may be that we shouldn’t demonise the career politician, but it may also be that we should ask the political class to engage in a different way.
At the moment, most of them seem unwilling to learn the lesson if their willingness to return to the game is any guide. The reality is there in the statement issued by the McCabes last Monday. It should be read by everyone who wants to understand how Ireland works.
“We have endured eight years of great suffering, private nightmare, public defamation and state vilification, arising solely from the determination of Maurice to ensure that the Garda Síochána adheres to decent and appropriate standards of policing in its dealings with the Irish people,” they said.
“We have also been the subject of a long and sustained campaign to destroy our characters in the eyes of the public and public representatives and in the eyes of the media.”
They asked for the truth today with “justice to follow in its wake”. They asked for six simple questions to be answered, but such is Ireland that some media organisations have been advised that these questions can’t be detailed for legal reasons.
Perhaps the tribunal will bring about change, justice and maybe the truth will emerge. It may take some time and years of ricocheting in and out of the Four Courts, going on previous experience of Tribunals.
Meanwhile those who try to highlight the flaws in how our society, like Maurice McCabe, have to fight for the survival of their family.
“Our personal lives and our family life, and the lives of our five children, have been systematically attacked in a number of ways by agencies of the Irish state and by people working for the state in those agencies,” the McCabes said on Monday.
The McCabes want the truth today, but today now is for something else. Today – and tomorrow, too – is for the whimsy of elections. It is for giddy chat about stalking horses and senior hurling. It is for motions of no confidence and all the other things Ireland talks about when it wants to put as much distance as it can between itself and the truth.
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