If you, dear reader, have never been in an Irish political party, then there is a particular Irish character type you may have never encountered: The Devoted Party Man.
These individuals exist in every political party, though in my experience they are slightly more common in Fine Gael than in Fianna Fáil. They are distinguished by a fanatical, near religious belief that the party is always right, and more than that, that the party can never fail. It can only ever be failed.
Such people, mercifully, rarely reach the very top of politics (notable exception: Timmy Dooley). There is a good reason for that: To become a leader, you must, generally speaking, have some idea of where your party must change. You must be able to say “this is a new FF” or “this is a new FG”. The devoted party man cannot do this, because he can simply never conceive of the party having been wrong. Fine Gael never needs to change, because Fine Gael is almost perfect. Sub in FF, Labour, Sinn Fein and so on as needed.
Consider the case, today, of John Kelly – the classic devoted party man. Kelly is in the news because he has been revealed to have been something of a Fine Gael fanatic on twitter, while also working for Simon Harris.
Before we get into what he said, note first what his job is. Kelly works in the Department of the Taoiseach as manager of Simon Harris’s constituency operation. He has no policy role – that would require thinking and ideas about what to change – but instead essentially makes sure that Harris gets potholes fixed in a timely manner by writing to the council, and that Harris attends the funerals of other devoted party men, from which his absence would be taken as mortal insult.
For this job he is paid rather well, and nobody would take any notice of him had Mark Tighe not uncovered tweets in which he called teachers lazy layabouts, the public racist, and implied that unvaccinated types during covid should be denied hospital beds. And probably food or water.
Thousands of people, of course, will be outraged. But actually, there is little to be outraged by, because the devoted party man is everywhere in Irish society and Kelly’s tweets are entirely mainstream within that cohort.
To understand his views, you must first realise that for the devoted institutionalist, the institution can never be at fault. It therefore follows that if something goes wrong, the institution (in this case Fine Gael) has been failed rather than having failed by itself. Have Fine Gael allowed too many migrants in? No – it’s the perfect amount, and people would see that if they were not racist. Has the Government lost control in schools? No – it has run the schools brilliantly and people would see that if teachers were not so bone idle.
The Irish Times, of course, chooses to highlight Kelly’s case because it is a juicy political story and they’ll get a few days out of it – tomorrow the opposition will demand he resigns, and so on. There’ll be a degree of outrage, and people will share the yarn in whatsapps. But here’s the truth: Kelly’s views are, broadly speaking, in line with most of the good folks in the Irish Times, almost all of the NGOs, and a great many minor political functionaries.
This would be a grand country, this Ireland of ours, if it wasn’t for the silly stupid lazy racist pig-ignorant people!
In my experience, which is not inconsiderable, the Devoted Party Man has another characteristic, which is absolute moral superiority, usually expressed as a kind of virulent progressive nationalism. By this token, he believes that Ireland (thanks to The Party) is simply the best and cleverest little island in the world, by dint of our clever-clogs trick of lowering corporate taxes. He thinks Ireland is the most compassionate and sensible place on earth too, because Simon Harris told him, and also because he can read Fintan O’Toole and understand most of the words. And he ruthlessly believes that the Americans in particular are stupid, and only marginally less immoral than the British and the Israelis, who are the dual avatars of his hatred.
These beliefs would be harmless in themselves, but they have an important side-effect: They make him particularly despise his fellow citizens, whose views, he fears, might make us more like any one of the unholy trinity of international villains. Mention the EU critically, and he will splutter in your face that it’s Brexit you want, you moron. Express a view on migration, and sure you want us to be like Trump. Say a critical word of the Government’s stance on the middle east, and you’re a Netanyahu-lover.
To the Devoted Party Man, the public are an inconvenience because they keep spoiling the party’s plans. What those plans are is irrelevant: The Devoted Party Man knows only that if Fine Gael does it, it must be good. And if you oppose it, you must be bad.
We are not governed by such people, Timmy Dooley aside. But we are, my friends, infested with them: They fill the middle ranking spots almost everywhere. You’ll find them as school deputy principals. Local Garda Serjeants. Presiding Officials in your local Motor Tax Office. Civil Servants. And, in the Party itself, sitting in the front row at the meeting, nodding approvingly, and keeping a beady eye out for anyone who might not be loyal.
Trust me: You know a few of them yourself.
JMG
Damn auto errect!
Triacla!
Trials