We Irish have many wonderful virtues, but perhaps our greatest asset is our ability to be two-faced. Indeed, to show our national commitment to two-facedness, we elect politicians who excel in that department.

Step forward Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin, who are joint winners of this year’s Two-Faced Politician of the Year Award. For the first time, the Dublin government has beaten Stormont into second place, mainly because the north’s two leaders have concentrated instead on having their two faces photographed. (They will now be entered in a different type of two-faced competition.)

So what, you ask, have the taoiseach and tánaiste done to deserve such castigation? The answer is that both men have offered a wide range of adjectives to describe Israel’s slaughter of over 40,000 civilians in Gaza, including 16,500 children. These have included Mr Martin’s “barbaric”, “shocking” and “outrageous” and Mr Harris’s “absolutely unimaginable and unconscionable”.

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However, the Dublin........

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