MacCool

Big day in Derry -- Bill and the Old Brigade

IT WAS a big day. The President Bill met the President Gerry while Blessed Martin looked on.

Derry’s walls have witnessed many sights. The great siege, Bloody Sunday and the time Derry Rovers played Celtic are just a few of the earth-shattering events played out within view of those historic walls.

Just a few weeks ago all these events were forgotten as Bill arrived in Derry to be honoured by Gerry and Martin and the people of the north-west of Ireland. This was the same Bill Clinton who bombed a perfume factory some time ago and described it as a nerve gas manufacturing plant. (Of course, the fact that a court case involving his personal aid Monica Lewinsky was causing him some difficulties at home had nothing to do with that attack and the subsequent civilian deaths were unavoidable collateral damage, or so it was maintained.)

This man being honoured by Gerry and Martin belongs to the hierarchy of North American power brokers who refuse to sign up to a treaty on international war crimes. (You have to admit that in the circumstances they are not stupid.)

This man being honoured is the same man who has quietly and persistently ordered bombs to be dropped on Iraq every time his domestic political situation looked like unravelling.

The man Gerry and Martin honoured in Derry city is the same man who while President of the most powerful nation on the face of the earth sent high-tech missiles to try to kill some Muslim fundamentalist who lived in a cave somewhere in the obscure hillsides of Afghanistan because the poor soul posed a “clear and persistent” threat to Western democracy.

It was nice to see all the same. It was also very reassuring to those of us who have witnessed the last 30 years of people power with some trepidation and fear. I have to admit it was not always so but, after I bought my Eircom shares I have begun to realise just how close this country came to being run by the ordinary common sense people of this island and how great a tragedy that would be for nationalists like me, Gerry and Martin.

So like many others, as I viewed Bill Clinton lording it over the peasants of Derry while their princes Gerry and Martin looked on approvingly I realised how all other events in Derry palled into insignificance.

Of course, historians will continue to write of Shane O’Neill’s defence at the Battle of Farsetmore 20 miles from the city and how it signalled the elevation of the O’Donnells to masters of Donegal. History will tell us of the arrest of Wolfe Tone (the father of Irish Republicanism) and how he was held captive near Buncrana 10 miles from the city. History will also record how the Flight of the Earls took place at Rathmullen just 20 miles from Derry.

But only Derry will have the distinction of being the one city in Ireland where an ex-American President helped Gerry and Martin prepare their own peasant Irish to return to being England’s serfs. The year was 2001 and of course the city will eventually have to change its name

In the meantime the town where the term “gerrymander” was invented might well spring yet another new word. Gerrymartin? You have to admit it is funny. (I mean the bit about me buying Eircom shares. All the rest of this story is true . . . by the way have you been Gerrymartined yet? . . . wait till the next time Bill comes visiting . . . he may visit your town . . .
- Mac Cool