Saving stags and waving Union Jacks

WE are getting ourselves all worked up over issues that are irrelevant to the way most of us are living. Stag hunting, dog breeding, an invitation to the Queen of England to visit us and the Fine Gael front bench reshuffle are issues that should not arouse too much debate.
Those matters might be important to some people but at a time of recession when more than 4,000 people are out of work and cannot pay their mortgages or cannot afford to put food on the table they are merely distractions.
Of course we should be concerned about animal welfare and of course John Gormley’s two bills that are aimed at protecting animals should pass through the Dáil without a vote. But politicians will always be politicians and they will play their political games.
I always thought, for example, that the Labour Party was opposed to stag hunting. I presume they still are but couldn’t get themselves to support or even abstain from anything that comes from the Government side of the House.
The Wildlife Bill is all about stag hunting and has nothing to do with hunting rabbits or foxes, with shooting or with fishing or even with coursing. But a lot of the opponents of the Bill, unable to find anything wrong with it, tried to justify themselves by making claims that were totally untrue. They claimed it was “the thin end of the wedge” and that passage of the Bill would eventually lead to the banning of all rural sports. They painted it as an urban versus rural issue. As if country people, by their nature, are cruel. Or as if John Gormley will be in power long enough to ban coarsing.
Let us be honest. Stag hunting is a cruel sport and it is only right and proper that all cruelty to animals should be banned. Just because some of those sports were enjoyed for generations do not make them acceptable. No more than cock fighting is acceptable today.
There should not have been divisions in the Dáil this week on the issue. We might as well argue that a husband has a right to beat his wife if she disobeys him. Perhaps Galileo was wrong after all and the world really is flat.
Let’s move on.
But some people never move on. Back in the 1960s I was among those who protested against the visit to this country of Princess Margaret of England. But I was young then and I could not understand how we could possibly welcome a member of the English royal family to Ireland while England had an army in occupation of part of my country against the will of the majority of the Irish people.
But a lot of things have changed since the 1960s. Apart from the fact that I am no longer young. We have had the Good Friday Agreement that has been endorsed by the vast majority of the Irish people, including the majority of Republicans and the majority of Unionists.
We are now members of the European Union on an equal footing with England.
Just because Ireland is a republic and England is a kingdom does not mean we cannot welcome the Queen of England to our shores. As we would expect our President to be welcomed in England.
We are not Queen Elizabeth’s subjects and do not have to subject ourselves to her when she comes here. Let us welcome her as the head of our nearest neighbouring state, a state with which we have very friendly relations.
I am not going to Dublin to wave my little Union Jack at the Queen as she passes over O’Connell Bridge as her ancestor Queen Victoria did over 100 years ago. I may not even go to Killaloe if she wants to visit the seat of her other ancestor King Brian Boru. If other people want to pay homage to her, that is their right.
There was a time when I would have been extremely annoyed at such people. But to deny them their right would be a denial of the freedom republicans are supposed to be fighting for.
Meanwhile, the latest Red C opinion poll in The Sunday Business Post must have come as a welcome relief to Fine Gael. The party can relax again. The poll confirmed what all polls bar one have been predicting for the past year or two – that Fine Gael will have more seats in the Dáil than any other party after the next general election.
The fact that Eamon Gilmore is the people’s choice as taoiseach is neither here nor there. The people do not elect the taoiseach.
The most worrying aspect of the poll for Fine Gael is the growing strength of the Labour Party, particularly in Dublin, where Labour is now 10 points ahead of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
That, I am afraid, will continue to be the case as long as Enda Kenny remains as leader of Fine Gael. But the rebels in the party are unlikely to launch another heave against their leader this side of the general election.
But the latest poll also confirmed that Fianna Fáil are on a hiding to nothing at the next election. People no longer talk about who will win the election but about how many seats Fianna Fáil are going to lose. Will it be 20? Will it be 30? Could the party possibly lose up to 40 seats?
What we are witnessing here is a seismic change in Irish politics. Fianna Fáil may not lose as many seats as the polls are indicating. But the party will no longer have the same influence on Irish life as it has had for more than 80 years.
Finally, I want to congratulate my old friend Christy Curtin on his election as Mayor of Clare for the coming year. I expect he will represent us with honour and decency. Go n-éirí go geal leis.