In Ireland a lot of people have lost track of how many houses they own – or now wish they could
PEOPLE ARE laughing at John McCain for not knowing how many houses he owns, but is this problem really such a rare one? In Ireland a lot of people have lost track of how many houses they own – or now wish that they could. What with the apartments in European capitals, not to mention our national contribution to the property boom in Dubai, the villas in Tuscany and the rural retreat in the further reaches of Connemara – the humblest landlord would need a calculator to work it all out.
Maybe John McCain owns a holiday home in Ireland. Maybe he owns a holiday home in a holiday village in Ireland. Recently friends who paid €900 in order to rent exactly such a house for a week had a fantastic time. The water coming out of the cold taps was boiling. In fact the water in the house was so hot that the handle on the lavatory cistern was actually warm to the touch. When, in a separate incident, they removed a light bulb in the bathroom in order to bring it to a bedroom that lacked a light bulb, water gushed from the vacated socket. (The temperature of the water gushing from the bathroom ceiling has not been established.) In response to a litany of increasingly colourful complaints, the caretaker of these properties urged his temporary tenants to turn on the taps.
He then showed them round the property, demonstrating how badly built they were – skirting boards that didn’t meet the floors, etc. The caretaker said he had not met many of the owners of the houses he supervised. The owners just phoned him up looking for their money, and were doing so with increasing frequency these days. So you see, those holiday homes – jerry-built, exorbitantly expensive and vacant in a rainswept landscape for much of the year – could be owned by John McCain.
Maybe John McCain owns a couple of apartments on the north side. Maybe he owns the empty office blocks that sprang up on Simmonscourt Road. Maybe he owns a townhouse out near Citywest. Maybe he invested in New Ross. Maybe he has an apartment in Carcasonne and has the beads out, praying that Ryanair’s giving hand never fails. Maybe he built on a flood plain. Maybe John McCain’s septic tank is killing our fish.
Or maybe – just maybe – John McCain doesn’t own a house at all. I put it to the jury that John McCain owns no house on this earth because the buildings that John McCain likes to call home – or, more properly, homes – are in fact owned by his wife, Cindy McCain. John McCain is a kept man. In the matter of properties he could well be the septuagenarian, male equivalent of a dumb blonde. John likes to run around getting his photograph in the newspapers, and being interviewed on TV. It is the preternaturally silent Cindy, who looks like her bones are blonde, who can provide an accurate list of their properties because, er, she’s the one who owns them. It’s Cindy who has the money in that house – or houses.
Do you think that Cindy McCain owns property in Ireland? I’d say she does. She must have broken that arm clubbing the last Irish auctioneer who encouraged her to invest in the most vibrant economy in Europe. With her rents plummeting Cindy has just found out that the entrepreneurial Irish are currently living – I think this is a Mullingar phrase, and I have been saving it up for some time – on the clippings of tin.
There are those who say that the McCains are absentee landlords, but to this we can only reply: “Aren’t they all?” The McCains aren’t so much republican, as Republican – either way, it’s all right. Sure the sub-prime thing hit us all.
Barack Obama has poured scorn on John McCain over this not-knowing-how-many-homes-you-own scandal. But Barack just doesn’t understand. For a long time, in the very distant past, the McCains didn’t have any money , and then suddenly they did. This admittedly rather dim memory of poverty makes every one of their current excesses not only understandable and excusable, but actually laudable. It is their history that makes everything the McCains choose to do in the present absolutely fine. That is why the McCain family motto is “Aren’t we great to be as good as we are?” In this way the McCains are republican in both senses.
Barack, on the other hand, owns only one house – as far as he can remember. Barack is a latte-sipping leftie who complains about the price of rocket. The bit about rocket is really true: Barack rather unfortunately tried to bond with a meeting of farmers at Adel, Iowa, by giving out about the price of rocket, which is known in America as arugula. This brought derision from the Republicans, and an interesting debate about lettuce. Barack’s supporters witheringly wondered whether real men ate iceberg .
American politics are most diverting. Barack is from Offaly. John McCain, as we all know, is from Fermanagh. If things don’t work out for John in November both he and Cindy could feel right at home here.