The Phoenix Park in Dublin is the largest urban greenspace in Europe. When Pope John Paul II came to Ireland in September 1979 — the first time a pontiff ever set foot on the island once known for its saints and scholars, that park was the only place big enough to hold the million or so who turned out for the papal mass. There’s also a nice little neo-colonial home there, set in its own grounds. When the British ruled this corner of their empire, it was the Vice-regal Lodge. And when the Irish finally got their independence on most of the island back in 1921, that Vice-regal Lodge became Aras an Uachtarain — the official residence of the president.
As most Irish would put it, the Taoiseach traipsed up to the park on Wednesday to dissolve the Dail. Huh? The Taoiseach is the official name for the Prime Minister, Enda Kenny, and he asked the president to dissolve parliament and call a general election for February 26. That’s so the Irish can elect new TDs — or members of parliament to every one else.
Irish politics, you see, has its peculiarities. For instance, if you’re a really good Gaelic footballer with a few All-Irelands under your belt, you’re golden as a TD. Huh? The Irish love sports stars and they make popular MPs.
Enda’s father, Henry, was a great man with the ball and the people of his native county of Mayo loved him.
Here’s the thing too: If you’re Irish, you never refer to the Taoiseach as Kenny. He’s Enda, plain and simple. Just like there was Bertie, Ahern that is. And Charlie, Haughey that is. And Garret, FitzGerald — you get the picture. The only real exception was Taoiseach Brian Cowan. Everyone called him Biffo, as in the Big Ignorant [Expletive] From Offaly. Biffo was just plain and simple.
Enda was the middle of five children, studied a bit in Galway, then went up to teacher-training college in Dublin before heading back to Mayo to teach. But when Henry dropped dead, there was a vacancy for a TD. Enda had all of the qualifications, a good steady job and the political backroom boys of Fine Gael in Mayo had a natural replacement. That was in 1975. And since then, Enda’s been on the rise.
As it stands now, with the dissolution of the Dail, Enda is the longest-serving TD. And he’s performed something of a miracle.
Back to Biffo. Biffo was the leader of Fianna Fail, a party that viewed itself as the natural governing populist party, where you couldn’t tell a minister from a crony, and brown paper envelopes stuffed with wads of cash found their way into pockets. Biffo performed miracles too, mostly about turning wine into water.
The Celtic Tiger was roaring. Ireland never had it so good for a decade from 1996 onwards. Houses were doubling in value every five years, there were two cars in every driveway and the Irish were even snapping up foreign homes from the Black Sea to the Canaries. Yep. And credit was good. Apply for a mortgage and you could get 110 per cent from the banks.
Bertie got caught up in a bit of a scandal over a loan from some Fianna Fail cronies and had to step aside. Biffo took over. And then it hit the fan. Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, the global crisis. And Irish banks were on the hook, under regulated, over extended and down and out. Biffo and the Fianna Fail boys had to go cap in hand to Europe, begging for a bailout. They got one, a total of 90 billion euros (Dh369.75 billion). But Europe wanted strict controls, austerity, tax hikes, programme cuts.
In a word, humiliation.
And come the general election of five years ago, in a word, annihilation, for Fianna Fail. Biffo was done, and it was Enda who led Fine Gael to the largest party status in the Dail, and into a coalition agreement with the Labour party to become Taoiseach.
Here’s the thing. Unlike the Greeks, who have asked for billions and had a tough time paying it back, the Irish took their medicine, swallowed their pride, cut their services, raised their taxes and have emerged from the bailout stronger than ever.
Right now, the Irish economy is booming, the best performer across the 28-member European Union, and its exports are at an all-time high. Unemployment has fallen from the 15 per cent it reached in the aftermath of the crash, to around the 8 per cent-mark. And large multinational corporations such as Apple, Google, LinkedIn and Pfizer love Ireland for its low corporate taxes, English-speaking workforce and proximity to bother mainland Europe and the United States.
Which all makes it a perfect time for Enda to go to the country. Chances are that by early March, Enda will be traipsing back to the park to inform the president that he can form a government — just in time to be at the head of the reviewing stand, when Ireland celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising of 1916. That was the seminal moment that set Ireland on its course to independence five years later. Under Enda’s watch, it has got its financial independence back.
