Three Monkeys Online

A Curious, Alternative Magazine

My enemy’s enemy

I’m feeling slightly lightheaded. This week I read a column by Kevin “Colonel” Myers that I largely agree with (although his use of the compound noun “Flynn-woman” threatens to undermine his argument with its whiff of blustering misogyny).From the Indo: “For law is not unconditionally binding to the Fianna Fail mind; it is accepted, but reluctantly, and even then, only provisionally. The vast majority of the gallimaufry of fraudsters, crooks, spivs, corner-boys, liars and pickpockets who have slunk through our many tribunals over the past decade have been identifiably Fianna Fail. This is so obvious that it is not even commented on – but it should be. The tribunals are a devastating insight into a society without morals, whose political culture was created by Fianna Fail. Words don’t define that culture, so much as nods and winks, and the wad of fivers in the back pocket at Galway Races. And the extreme, female embodiment of that culture is the unspeakable Flynn-woman, a proven liar, a fraudster, a creature of no integrity, and a traitor who, in any state with a clearly defined public morality, would be in jail. But she has that quintessential Fianna Fail quality of supreme arrogance. She clearly feels that she is above the law. And by God, she’s right. She bloody well is. THIS much I understand. But what I do not understand is why RTE, at this precise juncture, would agree to clear the way for her return to public life by waiving half her legal debts for costs, thereby rescuing her from the bankruptcy which she so richly deserves.” But didn’t we go through a similar cycle of outrage and disillusionment immediately after the last election? Sometimes it feels as though the Irish electorate’s relationship with FF is akin to that which exists between a battered wife and her spouse. Yet again she returns to the family home, telling her sceptical friends that this time he’s really changed…