An less than Occasional Guide to Irish Politics: The Political Blogger

He (and it’s almost certainly a he) is the self styled outsider on Irish politics, more often than not left leaning though with the odd libertarian fly in the ointment. Occasionally might work in PR or could have had a proper job in industry. Has an opinion on just about everything in sight and if presented with an issue he has never encountered before (what health coverage are Aliens – the real 10ft tall slimy green kind- entitled to, at the taxpayer’s expense, while visiting Ireland as part of a fact finding mission) is prepared to make one up on the spot just to ensure that his views fill the air. Has read a few books on politics and is inclined to refer to them repeatedly, PJ O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores is often a touchstone though largely because he likes to say Whores in a genteel company without mentioning Tiger Woods. Will link to people who once nodded to him that time he was in on the RTe or TV3 campus, though he was merely an audience member and didn’t succeed in getting to ask a question but the woman next to him did.

He has even run himself or managed the campaign of someone in the occasional election outing but was never in any danger of coming within an arse’s roar of holding public office. Might even still be a member of a political organisation but is almost certainly on the outer fringes of influence, or as he might term it ‘working away in the background’. Likes to pretend he enjoys having the access for ‘a quiet word’ with real political people of significance and can be found in pubs on the night of an Ard Fheis or public debates pointing out those parts of his leaders speech which he effectively wrote, or directly influenced or at least suggested something along similar lines to. “Look how he focused on saying we’re a team, great!” But brushes off the fact that practically the entire party had been saying much the same for years up to that point.

Takes to running offside or what he terms ahead of the pack on issues of public concern. Indeed, he will frequently make a lot of sense but for some reason the public just don’t get it. Or don’t read it or even know he exists. And somehow they manage to contentedly go about their lives!

Desperately wants someone to develop a speech plug-in to add to his blog which will read his words back to him, and perhaps others if they stumble across his writing, in his own voice. Usually sufficiently self deprecating not to take himself or his views too serious. After all, politics isn’t about anything important like how we get to live out our lives or indeed how we face death. Nothing major really.

*Done in honour of the weekend that is in it and in homage to the excellent series that Jason O’Mahony has been running for a while now, I offer one that he is probably too shy or polite to add himself and which was prompted in part by the most recent one. Any resemblance to anyone alive or indeed writing here is entirely coincidental.