AS I tidied up my bookshelves to make way for my Christmas haul of literature, a hard backed Passionist Mass bouquet fell out.
It was one of those get well cards sent to me by an elderly relative but to be honest, whilst thoughtful, I always found them rather macabre as they remind me of the funereal Mass cards we Catholics present to the bereaved.
On opening this one I was rather surprised to be greeted by the warm portrait by John Keane of the late and much lamented, former Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam. I can't quite remember why I stuck her inside this Mass bouquet other than the fact it was exactly the type of hard back cover which would protect it.
Across from her warm fleshy face was a fine idealistic portrait of my favourite saint, St Anthony. On reflection both parties would have been horrified at the thought of sharing such close proximity- especially Mo. In the week when politics in Northern Ireland showed its worst and uglier traits, I thought long and hard about Mo Mowlam and what she might have said to our bickering politicans.
She wasn’t one for mincing her words nor was she the type of Secretary of State to head for the bedcovers when the going got tough - not like these days.
Unionists instinctively disliked Mo - she was altogether too warm, too smart and too popular for them. To the public, she was simply a breath of fresh air injected into our political quagmire at exactly the right time.
Unionists were wrong about Mowlam as she often found herself battling the duplicity of Sinn Féin and in particular the perpetually evasive double speak of Gerry Adams. She was once reported as telling the eternal president of Sinn Féin ‘Bloody well get on with it, otherwise I will head-butt you!’ I guess if she were about today she would be giving both Arlene and Gerry a metaphorical kick up the rear end.
Mo wasn’t one for child-like sulking. She certainly wouldn’t have cried wolf or complained of misogyny even though she faced it on a daily basis here in Northern Ireland, at Westminster and within Labour. Unlike our politicians Mo was actually likeable, liked and loved by the public. Which of our politicians could the public ascribe those types of feelings towards today? I would surmise none.
Politics here is dominated with cronyism, cultism and good old-fashioned ass kissing.
We certainly could do with someone at the helm who could dole out what her biographer, Julia Langdon, called “industrial language” to deal with the child like tantrums we have been subjected to.
Which in a way brings me to St Anthony of Padua. Like many others I spend a lot of time looking for misplaced things. Certainly it’s something that has increased the older I get. My habit of putting a pound in St Anthony’s box after I have found something, which I had thought lost, has now been replaced with a weekly donation. The frequency of age-induced forgetfulness means I need in-built credit.
Certainly as an observer of politics you couldn’t fill all the St Anthony boxes in Ireland to replace the recent loss of credibility of our politicians and our political institutions. The public has an increased sense of frustration and anger.
Rather ironically, St Anthony had some words that appear relevant to the odd couple that make up our government. In a sermon he reminded his audience “actions speak louder than words, so let your words teach and your actions speak.” Translated that means being generous - something sadly lacking in the tit for tat exchanges masquerading as political discourse at Stormont.
Withholding paltry Irish language funding and then miraculously restoring it, suspending health plans to reduce waiting lists, dictating the removal of flags as an act of political posturing and hectoring each other through the airwaves are hardly the actions of grown-ups being paid over £80k per year to do a serious job.
St Anthony also reminded his followers that it was important to ‘learn to love humility’ but that too is a scarce commodity in the corridors of power. Mo Mowlam had humility in spades - she once compared herself to a ‘huge sack of potatoes’. But she also knew when it was time to tell some people to simply ‘F-off’ and thanks to the actions of some politicans the public may feel that way too.
Maybe she was meant to share a page with St Anthony.
