Enda Kenny’s long goodbye shows why Irish politics desperately needs change

My father was a Kerryman and he had a theory why Kerry people were believed to be cute and wily.

It began when people would start talking to someone from Kerry and incorrectly assume they were talking to an idiot.

When the conversation ended, they walked away pleased with the patience and kindness they had show in gently humouring a gobshite.

But then the Kerryman would say or do something that made it clear they weren't a moron. This would catch the non-Kerry person off guard.

Instead of saying, ‘Wasn’t I a fool for thinking that man was thick?’, a self-serving myth was created which made people feel good about themselves and less gullible. It wasn’t their fault they had underestimated the Kerryman because the Kerryman was shrewd. Christ, he was a cute hour. Kerry folk should never be underestimated, they decided. There were layers to them you couldn’t imagine.

When Enda Kenny announced his departure on Wednesday, the language employed suggested a colossus was leaving the stage. Some of this was the natural desire to pay tribute to a man who has been a TD for nearly 42 years.

A lot of the talk was about Enda the Survivor, a man who could emerge from any tussle unscathed. In this, it was possible to spot the creation of a myth designed to conceal the degeneracy of the Irish political class and its failure to act with urgency when urgency was required. 

Fine Gael lost 26 seats at the last election. There was a lot of talk afterwards about figuring out what the public wanted. It’s hard to know what the public want - to adapt Saul Bellow, they eat green salad and drink human blood. But it was clear what they didn’t want: Enda Kenny and Fine Gael.

But at the end of weeks of drift and negotiation, Enda Kenny emerged as taoiseach of a minority government. Last week, they said this was just an example of that great fighting spirit, but some might have felt it was an example of the weakness of others. Enda was taoiseach, but what was called the “internal angst” within Fine Gael was to be the pressing issue, ahead of all the other real pressing issues.

You might remember the Maurice McCabe affair. This scandal become so serious it turned into something more important than simply the allegation that there had been attempts to smear a Garda whistleblower, although that seemed to be serious enough for most people.

In fact, it was now more important than that. It was all about who said what to whom, and while it was hard to fully understand the importance of these details when placed against what happened to Maurice McCabe, the collective giddiness suggested it had to be important. Everyone told us so.

Now it was a political issue, a matter which would now determine who held the great offices of state and which focused, among other things, on the confusion caused by Enda Kenny’s statements and what he had been told by other ministers.

Kenny was doomed, some said. Leo Varadkar was odds-on to replace him, but it would be a bloody and messy battle which would split the Fine Gael party.

Ultimately, it can be said to have led to Enda Kenny’s downfall, but in a manner which suggests that the career paths of politicians are more important than the scandals overwhelming the country.

Enda was allowed to create his own timeline. In February, he said would deal with his future after he returned from America, and then when he returned from America as a viral sensation thanks to his speech about immigration at the White House, the timeline altered slightly from what was first anticipated.

Enda's shrewdness was noted again, his ability to survive was remarked upon. Someone, somewhere undoubtedly referred to him as the most cunning of them all.

But maybe he formed the view that he could get away with it, maybe he formed the view through experience that in politics words were just noises you made to get you through the night.

So Enda passed the key personal milestones, he became the longest serving Fine Gael Taoiseach and nothing else really mattered.

Ordinarily, the paralysis might be received with a shrug, but these aren’t ordinary times.

The crisis in the gardaí is of a frightening scale while Brexit requires something other than the ordinary response from the Irish government.

Since the financial crash of 2008, there had been a fundamental shift of emphasis in the world. “The elites” are under attack, extremism is on the rise and this has been reflected in the rise of far right parties.

In Ireland, we have comforted ourselves that extremists haven’t made an impact here (although we are no stranger to ultra nationalist parties who, unlike those ultras in other countries, had links to a private army).

The damage done to the Irish political class may not have been so obviously brutal as it has been elsewhere, but there has been a hollowing out. Ireland exited the bailout in 2013, but if you want to know what loss of sovereignty and the emasculation of a generation looks like listen to zombie politicians after a Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting speaking with all the passion and conviction of an 11-year-old reading the prayers of the faithful at a confirmation mass.

And this is the stuff that matters to them. As the leadership race got going, the collective giddiness returned. The political class rolled out all the old lines and delivered breaking news which wasn’t really breaking news at all, but the same news breaking a thousand times.

Fine Gael have been so concerned with this internal angst that little has been done during the course of this government. On Thursday, a vote in the Dail on the sale of AIB was passed because government TDs who would have voted against were said to be distracted by the leadership contest.

Maybe Leo Varadkar is as gifted as they say he is, maybe he will bring the change that is necessary. Certainly some who spoke out in support of him appeared to have found some heart and managed to sound like normal human beings.

Politicians are right to warn against the cynicism about politics which has contributed to the rise of demagogues and allowed populism to rise. Perhaps worn down by the demented demands of a system which makes them dependent on every vote, they have became weary too. 

But when they talk about survival and start gushing about the preternatural gifts of Enda Kenny, it's hard not to feel it is a self-serving myth designed to conceal the cynicism - not of the public - but of the political class themselves.