Facing problems left, right & centre

IT WAS Brendan Behan who said the first item on the agenda for any Irish republican meeting was always the split.

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In the case of the dream of a “United Irish Left Alliance” that might end the duopoly of a Fianna Fail and Fine Gael government, it usually doesn't even take that long.

Before the gathering is even called to order, some gobdaw will come along to spook the horses and frighten curious onlookers drifting in from the centre.

Enter Mick Wallace. Peacenik Mick shattered the illusion of the United Left that had briefly apparated around Catherine Connolly's landslide election victory.

While Mary Lou McDonald was daring to dream again of the Taoiseach's office, Mick was posting Al images of a balaclava-clad President Connolly toting an AK-47.

And before you could say “American imperialist overlords”, the fanciful notion that the assembled brain trust of the Irish left could sit together around a cabinet table and govern like grownups was slipping through your fingers again.

The Connolly campaign tried to hide Mick and Clare Daly behind the far more agreeable figure of Maureen O'Sullivan whenever the issue of their meeting with a Syrian warlord was brought up.