Ruth Dudley Edwards: The exit of the dull Jim Gavin in the Irish presidential election race might lead to a head of state even worse than Michael D Higgins
I spend far too much of my time following politics but for several decades it has had a grip on me. Irish, English, Scots or American — or other entertaining byways like France, Italy or Argentina — I’ll be switching on the radio to catch the latest news from the Department of You Couldn’t Make It Up.
It’s my soap opera, and I’m an addict.
My excuse is that as a biographer by trade, I have a deep interest in politics since it reflects all human life.
On the side I used to write satirical crime novels, an occupation I gave up in despair a few years back.
I had always made fun of political correctness, but the arrival of the woke mania saw me off.
I gave up on my fifth failed attempt to write my thirteenth novel — a book called Death of a Snowflake — as reality steadily out ran my inventiveness.
This was not long after nonsensical ideology had produced legislation in the obsessively progressive Irish republic that — without any real debate —permitted a man in a beard and a frock, simply by declaring himself to be female, to have access to women’s changing rooms, lavatories and other safe spaces.
The UK was afflicted too, but slightly less crazily, and all us sane people can now rejoice that the pendulum is swinging and laws are being amended.
We still have a National Health Service and other redoubts where elements refuse to accept the UK Supreme Court’s ruling that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, but albeit slowly, normality is on its way back.
It’s always worth noting that some of the strongest voices fighting against trans extremism have been trans themselves, lesbian or gay.
Northern Irish politics is mostly depressing, since paralysis doesn’t easily make good drama, but there is the diversion across the border of the Irish presidential election.
After toying irresponsibly with the hope that my life could be brightened with President Michael Flatley tap dancing into Aras an Uachtarain, I took the sensible path of hoping that party leaders would ensure a decent choice of candidates to get a debate going about national values.
But no.
The traditional pastime of shutting down debate closed down the options.
The highly articulate Mairia Steen, whose sin in these aggressively secular times was to be an unapologetic Roman Catholic, was unwelcome to Tweedledum (Fianna Fail) and Tweedledee (Fine Gael), who conspired to block her candidacy.
So the grumpy electorate was left with dull, decent Jim Gavin and Heather Humphreys, and Catherine Connolly, a proud member of the loony left, endorsed by Sinn Fein in exchange for a commitment to a united Ireland that few Irish actually want.
And then the media did for the unfortunate Gavin, who after many years as an exemplary soldier and a selfless and highly effective servant of the GAA, was revealed to have failed to repay a debt of €3,300 from 2009 at a time of financial disasters.
This may lead to Connolly, who seems more extremist even than Michael D Higgins but perhaps fortunately lacks his oratorical skills, becoming become a new national embarrassment.
Isn’t politics wonderful?
• Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of ‘The Faithful Tribe: an intimate portrait of the loyal institutions’ and 'Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice’