The plain people and the privileged few |
THE GREAT Irish writer Flann O’Brien used to write about ‘the plain people of Ireland’, and the phrase became such a success that years later certain TDs have used it.
The difference was that Flann O’Brien used it mockingly, albeit affectionately, whilst the TDs used it seriously.
Even odder than that was the fact that the Kerry TDs who used it were some of the richest people sitting in the Dáil. They aren’t themselves that ordinary at all, you see.
In my own constituency, one of the TDs most likely to use that phrase and most likely to lean into talking about the ordinary Irish people is again one of the richest people in the Dáil. What strange times we live in. Flann O’Brien, an artist of the absurd, must be smiling wherever he is.
It’s an upside-down world, isn’t it? Donald Trump is the billionaire son of a millionaire who is apparently fighting against the establishment.
Reform UK and their even further right-wing cousins in Restore Britain are always railing against the establishment and shouting about how much they represent the voices of ordinary people.
Both parties are very much one-man........