This column first appeared on Broadsheet.ie on July 13th. It was written before An Taoiseach summarily dismissed Barry Cowen as Minister. It looks at the continuing disquiet and indiscipline within Micheál Martin’s Fianna Fáil and concludes that the problems stem from Martin’s dogged refusal to reciprocate the party’s particular brand of loyalty… loyal-aty.
Fianna Fáil back bench TDs must now exert their influence and insist that they commission and oversee the much promised independent report into the party’s disastrous Feb 2020 national election campaign.
Like many Dubs, my late Dad had a habit of sticking an extra syllable or letter into certain words.
So, when Sheedy, Quinn, Townsend, Cascarino, Houghton and O’Leary put the ball in the net in Italia 90, they didn’t just score brilliant goals, in my Dad’s phrase they scored goalds. I won’t go into how he described the Schillaci shot that sent us home. Suffice to say that it had precious few “d”s, but plenty of “f”s, “c”s and “k”s.
Not that my Dad did it consciously or deliberately. Like others, it was just part of the Dublin/Liberties patois they grew up with.
Many Dubs, including this one, still occasionally find themselves doing it. While I can manage to talk about goals without adding the “d”, I do have one word where I sometimes find myself adding an “i” or an “a” between the second “l” and “t”, transforming the word loyalty into loyal-ity or loyal-aty… a higher form of the quality or state of being loyal.
Continue reading “It’s about loyal-aty… plus, we have a digital Tánaiste and an analogue Taoiseach.”
As you will see from the opening paragraph below I wrote this column, which appeared on 
