Right, I need to get this off my chest. I wasn’t at Electric Picnic this year and I’m about as bothered by this as I am about missing the latest episode of Fair City. Which is to say, not at all. In fact, I’ve reached that glorious stage of middle age where NOT going to a festival feels like an achievement worthy of its own wristband, preferably one that doesn’t cost €300 and leave a rash.
While thousands of youngsters were discovering what trench foot feels like in a field in Stradbally, I was at home conducting my own festival. The lineup ran as follows: long lunch with a podcast on the main stage, followed by a surprise appearance from The Fridge Full of Cold Cans in the early evening, then a long, long hot shower and a headline set by Match Of The Day.
I even had my own Chappell Roan moment, dancing around the kitchen to Pink Pony Club while making hummus. I was wearing slippers instead of wellies. The children looked on with the kind of judgment usually reserved for security guards at 3am in the Body & Soul area. What’s wrong with Daddy? What is he overcompensating for? I wonder if he is secretly mourning the death of his youth?
Sure, I used to love festivals. There were ten solid years where we made political cartoons in the Mindfield area and had tickets for the VIP camping zone. And I definitely don’t miss them. No sireee! Nothing to see here. I love being middle aged, honest!
Presidential exhaustion
Meanwhile, as the nation’s youth were getting their yearly dose of rickets in Laois, the rest of us turned our attention to the presidential race, which is shaping up to be the worst reality TV show RTÉ never commissioned.
The lineup is evolving all the time. We’ve got Jim Gavin, a man so economical with words nobody has actually ever heard him speak. On the evidence of this week, he must have communicated with his former Dublin All Star team entirely through telepathy. No wonder they played with the relentless cohesion of The Borg on the pitch. Perhaps this is how he’ll run the country - seven years of long hard stares, meaningful silences and the occasional nod. State dinners where foreign dignitaries wonder if they’ve offended him or if this is just how the Irish carry themselves. ‘The President will see you now.’ Long pause. ‘Or will he?’ Even longer pause. ‘He will.’ Exit.
After fourteen years of flowery poetry, uilleann pipes and statecraft from Miggledy, there could be something to be said for seven years of pregnant silence.
Then there’s Bob Geldof potentially threatening to throw his outsized hat in the ring, a man who can get things done, whose heart is in the right place and who won’t shut up about it. But you have to wonder how his ego could survive the restraints of the office? Could he resist telling every global leader who displeased him to ‘eff off’? Worse still, might he insist on playing his music to us on a regular basis? On the other hand, with Trump pulling foreign aid to poorer nations, there may be no better time to have a man in the Áras who will make a bit of a nuisance of himself on the international stage and campaign for real justice.
Catherine Connolly seemed to be quietly building a credible campaign until this week when it was revealed she met a supporter of Assad in Syria during the regime. Alan Kelly has already broken ranks with his Labour colleagues and will not support her. You have to wonder if the rest of the left wing parties can survive the election without tearing each other to pieces, as is the tradition. Which would be a shame, as Connolly’s quiet, impressive manner is, dare I say it, presidential and she would seem a genuine inheritor of Michael D’s mantle. In Ireland, we do like to put our celebrated lefties in positions of very little power where they can project a progressive image of us to the world without us having to follow through on left-wing policies like paying higher taxes for better services. So she’s got a good shot!
There are other outliers of course. There’s Ireland South MEP Billy Kelleher, whose supporters still believe he has a path to the Fianna Fáil nomination. There’s the notorious Conor McGregor, the no less notorious Bertie Ahern, and probably Bosco… There’s a long way to go yet and, quite frankly, I’m exhausted already.
True Irish traitors
If you want a preview of how this presidential campaign will actually unfold, look no further than Siobhán McSweeney hosting The Traitors. Watching her preside over that carnival of paranoia and backstabbing is basically watching Irish politics with better lighting and more wolfhounds. The fake friendships, the whispered conspiracies, the dramatic reveals: you’d wonder if the presidential election might be decided along faithful and traitor lines this year. It’s great to see RTÉ making such brilliant telly.
The Ezra Klein Show
A short aside, but worth noting: the decision by the Irish government to take a legal stand against Israel over its government’s actions in Palestine looks wiser by the day. With the rest of the world slowly waking up to the horror that Netanyahu and his goons are perpetrating, Ireland’s stance will be seen to have been on the right side of history.
For a very good discussion on why taking this position is meaningful, I would recommend The Ezra Klein Show’s podcast interview with Philippe Sands. Sands is the author of East West Street, a book about how the idea of genocide was developed and written into international law. It is a tough but essential listen.
