To joyous cheers, the spirit of the late Princess Diana entered the auditorium and into the besotted embrace of the swooning crowd.
It was the unlikeliest of settings, among the most unlikely group of people.
Another earthquake moment. But there you are. That’s the Shinners for you, on a steadfast mission to disprove that seismology isn’t everything.
Size, on the other hand, might prove more of a problem. But that sort of talk is vulgar in republican circles, where they are still savouring a post-election cigarette. Never mind their lack of width in Dáil seats, just feel the quality.
But back to the invocation of Lady Di in Liberty Hall on a cold Tuesday evening in Dublin.
It was Donegal's Pearse Doherty who said it, all of a sudden channelling his inner Tony Blair at the end of another lengthy lap of honour by Sinn Féin to celebrate its position as outright moral winner of the general election.
“Mary Lou is The People’s Taoiseach,” he declared as the crowd roared in agreement.
So much so that party leader Mary Lou McDonald was twice so anointed - first by finance spokesman Pearse and then by MC for the night, Louise O’Reilly, who repeated the conferral during the rally.
Not just Sinn Féin’s Taoiseach, but The People’s Taoiseach.
She is their Queen of Smarts.
The parallels are spooky. “There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded,” Lady Di said in her famous interview after the break-up of her marriage to Prince Charles. She really wanted to make it work, but it wasn’t to be.
Same here. “There were three of us in this arrangement of seats, so it was a bit crowded.” Would it surprise anyone were Lady Lou - The People’s Taoiseach - to say so when her attempts to get Sinn Féin into government Fáil?
Establishment
Because the other heartless two - Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar - have no time for her and have made this abundantly clear. The full heft of The Establishment is now lined up against the party, as was regularly pointed out in Liberty Hall.
But Mary Lou soldiers on for now, and we do not mean this in the military sense.
People are far too quick to get the wrong end of the stick. And we don’t mean that in a violent sense.
Anyway, what we are not referring to was done by other people and it’s in the past which shouldn’t be mentioned. Unless you are from Sinn Féin, which is different.
As Michelle O'Neill, Stormont-based deputy leader and part of the SF government negotiating team said during Tuesday's moral victory rally: "I think that it's very convenient for Micheál and Leo to reach for the past every time they don't like this… It's very convenient that in the aftermath of the election … they want us to talk about everything other than the fact that they have failed and the people have changed."
The past is only good when it’s properly packaged. There were posters for sale outside the auditorium, replica copies of a 1918/1920 election poster urging a Sinn Féin vote “If you really want an Irish Republic”. We didn’t check the prices, although the same poster on the Sinn Féin website retails at €14.99, signed and all by Mary Lou.
In more matters of the past, a “Still An Unrepentant Fenian Bastard” tee-shirt is also featured on the website, although it’s on sale now, reduced from €19.99 to €9.99, in keeping with the new dispensation.
The future is the new past. O’Reilly, introducing some of the speakers from the Sinn Féin negotiating team (no sign of Gerry Adams), also introduced a short video featuring Mary Lou.
Mary Lou McDonald is no eejit. Neither are her top-level colleagues. They understand the electoral arithmetic
“Now is a time for fresh thinking,” she said. “And I am ready to lead.”
The party leader is most impressive. As a communicator, she is streets ahead of the other Big Two in the relationship. She owned that stage and shines in the limelight.
“I believe in getting things done. If something is broken you roll up your sleeves and you fix it.” The script was classic fodder for the troops. With a few tweaks, it could have been delivered at one of the other main political parties' motivational sessions.
Meaningless hyperbole
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar - not the people’s one in terms of the popular vote - foolishly dismissed these Sinn Féin rallies as part of the party’s campaign of “intimidation and bullying”. He must be severely traumatised from his attendance at Fine Gael party conferences so, where similar aspirational guff is routinely ladled out in buckets to the supporters.
Mary Lou McDonald is no eejit. Neither are her top-level colleagues. They understand the electoral arithmetic.
It doesn’t stop her saying she can become taoiseach, and behaving in a manner becoming to a taoiseach. Her stock is soaring.
Here's more meaningless hyperbole which could have come from the script stockpile of any the big three: "So we must dare to win … To win a new Ireland in which no-one is left behind … Sinn Féin sees you. Sinn Féin hears you and Sinn Féin will fight your corner."
All night, McDonald, along with O’Reilly, Eoin Ó Broin, O’Neill and Doherty, said variations of the same things that the other politicians say at their gigs, only they said it better.
They were preaching, in the main, to the converted. Posters may have gone up in Dublin on Sunday morning advertising this meeting, but the attendance was overwhelmingly Sinn Féin. But the crowd also included a large media contingent, all reporting on the size of the crowd, the engaged atmosphere, the energy and Mary Lou’s right to be recognised as The People’s Taoiseach. The photos were great.
Sinn Féin backroom scribes might have preferred to dub her "The Real Taoiseach", but that title was owned many decades ago by a Fianna Fáil taoiseach Jack Lynch.
These rallies (there’s another one on Wednesday night in Newry) will have little bearing on the outcome of negotiations.
Interestingly though, McDonald said a coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil might hasten a natural Left/Right realignment of national politics, but she’s not in favour of it. “People simply can’t afford to have another five years of the same,” she argued. “I say here this evening: enough is enough.”
Unfortunately for her, the cold reality is that the amount of seats won determines who gets to govern: not enough is not enough.
It was a good-humoured rally. Health spokeswoman and host Louise “I do love a public meeting” O’Reilly kept the event running at a jaunty clip. She is a natural entertainer, but McDonald was the star of the show.
She kicked off with an in-joke. “First thing I want to say is: Up the Dubs! That will be my most significant statement of the evening.”
It was met with knowing laughter from the audience, along the lines of “Haha! Bet the media thought she was going to say ‘Up the Ra!’.”
A fascinating Sinn Féin strategy to deflect from its failure to properly acknowledge IRA atrocities, along with questions on who really controls top-level decision-making (“inconvenient” issues which refuse to go away), has emerged.
In this situation, what would Gerry do? And increasingly, the man who led the party for over 30 years, parries with jokes about “shadowy figures” and “sinister elements”. When we asked him recently how he injured his foot, he smilingly answered “the sinister shadowy figures …”.
It’s all great fun now. The shadowy figures are figures of fun. The people who keep asking the awkward questions are figures of fun, more to be laughed at than taken seriously. It’s a riot on social media.
There was no mention of the shadowy stuff at the rally, for a change.
Mary Lou’s remarks about a newspaper headline she read on the party’s breakthrough election result went down a treat.
“The Barbarians are at the gate!” She paused. “So. Newsflash! The Barbarians are through the gate. They’re through the gate!”
The question and answer session went very well, with full answers at will from the top team. Even though the rally was open to all, with no tickets required, there were no awkward questions or dissenting voices.
If only Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil weren't conspiring to keep them (and their 24 per cent of the vote) out of power
Issues included the health service, housing, student housing, corporate tax, personal tax, restoring the pension age, Dáil governance, direct provision and adoption rights. A young man from People Before Profit wondered if Sinn Féin would join their "March for Change" on March 7th, aimed at sending a clear signal against Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil going into government.
Mary Lou said they should fire away with the protest, but Sinn Féin won’t be there. Too busy trying to put a government together. “This isn’t some pipedream ... This isn’t some fantasy.”
If only Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil weren’t conspiring to keep them (and their 24 per cent of the vote) out of power.
In the current edition of An Phoblacht, national chairman Declan Kearney writes that “the general election confirmed Sinn Féin as the largest party in the southern state, representing the community and class interests of working people, with a massive mandate of over half a million votes”, and yet “the Irish establishment parties have effectively launched ‘a very Irish coup’ in an attempt to subvert the popular demand for change, and to stop Sinn Féin from getting into government.”
Is there anything to be said for another rally?
The next production on in the Liberty Hall theatre is called The Vanishing Gun.
Around the corner, the Abbey is running The Fall of the Second Republic.
“This still incomplete national liberation phase in Ireland is fast approaching its tipping point,” writes Kearney.
Mary Lou McDonald is in no doubt.
“Venceremos! Venceremos!” cried The People’s Taoiseach at the end of the night.
“We will win!”
If only seismic mattered.
