Ard Fheis exposes unease among political bedfellows

World of Politics with Harry McGee

Last weekend’s Fianna Fáíl Ard Fheis won’t live long in the memory – in sharp contrast to the glory days of the past. Think most of all of the famous exhortation after the Arms Trial; Kevin Boland had had the whip removed and his supporters were trying to get him on to the stage to make a speech. It was Paddy Hillery who stood up and shouted to the hall: “Ye can have Boland but ye can’t have Fianna Fáil.”

There have been other famous lines that defined the party and its direction. Brian Cowen summed up the mood of the Albert Reynolds camp when Charlie Haughey floated the idea of a coalition with the hated Progressive Democrats in 1989: “When in doubt leave them out,” he said.

Haughey himself delivered some memorable lines, not least in 1987 with his observation that the darkest hour was just before the dawn.

The country was in recession at the time and the promise of Haughey’s phrase that better things were to come resonated with voters.

Bertie Ahern was never a wordsmith. When he gave his Ard Fheis speech in 1987 he was embroiled in the growing controversy about his own finances.

So what he did was he did a give-away stump speech – he listed dozens of things the Government would do if re-elected including tax cuts, more roads, improvements to services.

It was the equivalent of “one for everyone in the audience”. And it worked: Fianna Fáil coasted home to win its third general election in a row.

Almost a decade later, and after dramatic upheaval, Michael Martin stood up and addressed the Fianna Fáil faithful in January 2016, a month before the general election.

He told them Fine Gael wanted ‘a coronation not an election’. “Well this is a republic and we don’t do coronations. The Irish people will decide,” he said.

It set the tone for the party’s approach to the general election the following month, where it more than doubled its number of seats from 19 to 44.

Finding a memorable moment was a trickier proposition last weekend. The party isn’t in election mode, even though there could be an election at any time.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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