The de Valera Code

Brian Feeney looks at Peter Robinson’s career and future problems in today’s Irish News. He sees parallels between Robinson’s career and that of Gordon Brown – the loyal deputy who gets to be leader at exactly the wrong time. Feeney says Robinson is “a competent finance minister … Can he be party leader? In his career there’s no evidence of any political flair or imagination never mind charm”.

Feeney also wonders how Robinson “sees the future of unionism or if he sees a future for unionism. Perhaps when he finally and at last takes over from Paisley he’ll have the confidence to present some of his own ideas, if he has any. Maybe we can look forward to him laying out his stall in June explaining where he’s taking the DUP. Does he know? Has he been carefully hoarding all his ideas for those 30 years as a shadow because that’s what he is, a two-dimensional object who will fade when the light shines on him?” (Ouch!)

Feeney does not mention the ‘F’ word – Fianna Fáil – but it is hard not to recall Tom Kelly’s article on Monday in the same paper about last week’s Fianna Fáil/SDLP breakfast bash. Kelly’s description of the energy of the event, the numbers of people in attendance (and the numbers who could not be included), the list of MLAs there and the passion of Mark Durkan’s speech was an eye-opener.

There is little doubt that this was a significant event and it would seem that many in the SDLP have decided to throw their lot in with Fianna Fáil. Many ordinary nationalists will flock to the Soldiers of Destiny. It will be a simple emotional response but the opportunity to support Fianna Fáil will be too strong to resist for many; the party will exert a strong pull on nationalists’ romantic nature. For many nationalists, it will be Home Rule a hundred years after the event – and they will embrace it.

Fianna Fáil will also appeal to a certain section of unionism for which neither the DUP or UUP cater. There will be no rush to join at first but Fianna Fáil can comfortably support the north-side Dubliner and daily Mass-going Bertie Ahern and the patrician Church of Ireland Martin Mansergh in its ranks. The Soldiers of Destiny will recruit soon enough people from the Protestant/unionist background who do not like the fundamentalism of the DUP or the ‘big house’ unionism of the UUP.

Fianna Fáil will also win over the business class – those who are happy to see new roads being built with the Irish Euro, who delight in Aer Lingus being at Aldergrove, who can’t wait for the jobs in the financial sector to come and who, day and daily, travel by First Class on the Enterprise to Dublin to make the kind of money they can’t make in Belfast.

And that is Fianna Fáil for you – pragmatic, populist, practical visionaries with an intellectual backbone. As time goes on, the narrow understanding of what the DUP mean by Ulster and British will be eroded by the more imaginative and more welcoming understanding of what Fianna Fáil mean by Ulster and Irish. Better politicians than Peter Robinson have tried to crack the de Valera code and failed.