GOD, I'm going to be hated for this; but is there any reason why Mary Robinson's departure from The Park should occasion the complete suspension of normal critical faculties which we have recently witnessed?
Yes, in a way, for Mary Robinson was once our brightest and bravest counsel, taking on issues which others shirked. She legally pioneered the separation of church from State. More than that, she was prepared to cut through the odious humbug and falsehood which surrounded our legislative attitude towards the law and sexuality - which was why her Presidency was welcomed by the liberal intelligentsia (and also, I might add, by me).
Good Eggism
And all the worthy and egalitarian instincts of that noble species, the liberal intelligentsia, have been gratified by the Robinson Presidency, and often for good reason - she has been a refreshing departure from the convention that the presidency is a graveyard watch for political has beens.
But on the other hand, she has indulged in, and has catered for, our almost infinite appetite for Good Eggism, especially where we prefer simple piety to complex solutions to complex problems.
Mary Robinson is very much a woman of her tribe; she is a Norman, and she comes from that ruling caste which predates the arrival of the Cromwellian NCOs who went on to become that largely bogus species, the Anglo Irish gentry. And as a Norman, she is not above giving the poor of the parish a good talking to about, for example, being kind to travellers.
Removing Barriers
Now there is no more complex and difficult issue within the Republic of Ireland than that of travellers. The instinct of every bien pensant liberal accords with the frequent Good Eggist sentiments expressed by Mary Robinson opposing discrimination against travellers.
And I too, am opposed to discrimination against travellers, but that will make little difference to people who live near traveller halting sites, such as Coolock, where two years ago she agreed during the opening of a traveller run laundry that barriers between travellers and settled people could be broken down if children at school learned more about each community.
And then she returned to the Aras, where there is not a halting site in view for miles, leaving behind her the remote estate dwellers of Coolock, who probably do not feel they need to learn more about the travellers in their midst simply from school. Or vice versa, insofar as traveller children stay at school.
On the other hand, the people of Coolock might feel they have learned something from the fact that the four woman laundry managed to get established with the support of Dublin Corporation, FAS, Northside Partnership, the Dublin Travellers Education and Development Group, the Jesuit Solidarity Fund and People in Need. At that rate, it'll be a while before a big dent is knocked in traveller unemployment.
Tuam Case
The very week that she announced her resignation from the Presidency, the town of Tuam was in uproar over a court case in which some 35 defendants, all of them travellers and most of them named Ward, are accused of various offences including assault, criminal damage, offences against the Public Order Act and being in possession of dangerous weapons.
(My advice to President Robinson is that she should not go to Tuam for the moment anyway to deliver homilies about how to improve traveller settled relations).
Tuam is still recovering from that affray last June, which seems to have had its origins in a dispute between travellers in Clondalkin, for which "guilty" pleas have already been entered by some of the alleged participants in the Tuam affair, which lasted two nights, and involved more than one hundred people, most of whom seem to have been armed with slash hooks, iron bars, knuckle dusters and hatchets.
We might reasonably suppose that the court in Tuam is unlikely to get to the bottom of this fight. Already, the trial has seen four prosecution witnesses - all of them named McDonagh - warned by Judge John Neilan that he would bind them to the peace for telling "absolute lies". The judge himself reports that he has been receiving threatening phone calls in connection with the trial.
What does all this tell us? Not a lot, except this that people such as travellers who live in the margins of society do so for complicated reasons, some of which are beyond our under standing, some of which are amenable to corrective action, and most of which will remain in existence, regardless of Good Eggish hand wringing in high places.
And this has truly been the Presidency of Good Eggery, especially in Africa where Mary Robinson, nearly five years ago, rather Good Eggishly offered to be the voice of Somalia to the councils of the world.
Now we in Ireland would no doubt be perfectly ecstatic to be told that henceforward we were going to be represented by the President of Somalia, a Good Egg; who, incidentally, couldn't speak our language, knew nothing of our culture, but would nonetheless, being a Good Egg, be leaving us directly to say nice things about us in the UN.
But since Mary Robinson was simply being a Good Egg, she couldn't be faulted; as she was being a Good Egg when she went to Rwanda. Three times. Perhaps it is as well that this Rwanda visiting hasn't caught on round the world, or the Rwandan Guard of Honour would spend the entire year sweating, saluting and swooning at Kigali Airport as heads of state, Good Eggs every one, flew in to inspect their National Calamity, Looking Grave.
Feeling Better
Yes, yes, yes, Mary Robinson made a marvellous change from the modest and conventionally political creatures who moved their toothbrushes into the Aras. But there has been a powerful sense of having head girl about the place, with loads of Good Eggery and a touch of soup for the deserving poor. The truth is, the bien pensants quite like the Good Egg approach to problems. The problems don't go away, but we feel better. And that is not necessarily a good thing.