Begrudgery shouldn’t be a national pastime

World of Politics with Harry McGee

One of the great Irish books of the last few decades is one that is sadly no longer in print. It was written by the great Aran Islands journalist Breandán Ó hEithir and was entitled: The Begrudger’s Guide to Irish Politics.

A begrudger, said Ó hEithir, was driven by a deep and abiding doubt about “our ability to run our own affairs as well as others might run them for us”.

Of course, he also reckoned they were the largest group in Irish society.

If they were the largest group back in the 1980s, they have probably grown in numbers since.  Begrudgery seems to be the default trigger for just about anybody who isn’t a Government politician.

When things were going very well during the Noughties the thing to say was that there were those who begrudged success and hated seeing Irish people being successful. That was usually said by people who weren’t paying enough tax and justifying it.

Aha, you have noticed! The malaise also extends to journalism.

You can bet your bottom dollar it does. The ink of most political journalists in Dublin is coloured by an all-embracing bleak black of negativity.

That goes too for opposition spokespeople. Fianna Fáil have been going on about being a responsible opposition, of giving praise where praise is due. That translates into the very odd word of welcome, quickly followed by a battery of qualifiers and negatives.

As for the rest? For Sinn Féin and the battery of smaller parties and indepedents, there is nothing more important than a whinge.

So is the Government right? Not at all. It’s U-turned, it has betrayed, it has not lived up to promises. It can reek of arrogance. It can have a tin ear to the needs of the people. It too plays the partisan game.

So they are all wrong then? Isn’t that the ultimate begrudgery? No, they are all right some of the time but the default mode of Irish politics is to complain. Of course, we are not unique in it but we do it better than anybody else.

Let’s put it this way. Could you imagine any political party in Ireland running a campaign like Obama’s 2008 election campaign, advocating a positive message, the art of the possible and ‘Yes We Can’.

Sure, US politics is as partisan as it comes but there is still a bit of space for positivity. That space seems to have become smaller and smaller in Ireland.

I’m writing this in the picturesque village of Laragh in Co Wicklow ahead of a quick climb of Lognacoille and maybe all that is colouring my mood.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.