The Taoiseach put on his “I’m going to say something funny now” face, the one where he smirks to himself because he knows he is just about to knock ’em all dead with a hilarious one-liner.
He folded his arms tightly around his chest, giving himself a happy hug in advance of what he was about to say.
Danny Healy-Rae had just made an impassioned plea on behalf of publicans in the village of Killorglin, Co Kerry. Fourteen of them recently applied to the District Court for an exemption to stay open until 3am during Puck Fair, but the judge permitted them to serve until only 2am.
Outrageous carry on. Danny Healy-Rae was incensed.
Puck Fair has been going on in the Kerry village for more than 400 years, he told the Dáil. “It has survived many obstacles – bad times, good times and it even survived Joe Duffy’s attack on the goat.”
Just to be clear, Joe Duffy didn’t physically attack the wild goat, which is captured and crowned King of Killorglin for the duration of the three-day festival. The recently retired broadcaster merely facilitated some very heated Liveline phone-ins about the welfare of the goat during its short stint in captivity.
Having risen above many setbacks, Danny hopes the festival will survive the docking of an hour off pub closing time. The publicans are set to appeal to the Circuit Court.
So Killorglin only gets to serve until 2am on two nights during Puck Fair in August, “yet we have to listen constantly about requests here in Dublin to open Dublin until six in the morning”, complained Danny.
What they are saying above in Dublin is, “they want to bring back the night”.
Puck Fair is an event where people come to meet each other once a year, or maybe only once every three or four years, he said.
It seems the reason gardaí objected to a 3am finish was pressure on resources.
“Are Garda resources under so much pressure that we can’t afford an extra hour each night until three o’clock to maintain the tradition that we’ve had in Killorglin? ’Twas open all night, you know, one time, Taoiseach.”
Then Danny looked directly across at the Government front bench and did his bit for Kerry tourism.
“And seeing as ye are there now, I am inviting ye all to Puck Fair – the Taoiseach, the Minister for Justice, the Chief Whip and yourself, Ceann Comhairle. Ye are all welcome to Puck.”
Micheál Martin got giddy at the prospect of everyone being welcome to Puck in Kerry.
But on the subject of extending drinking hours and granting exemptions, he seemed to be suggesting a somewhat dodgy solution.
“There were many times in Kerry, apparently, when there were many lock-ins,” he said, cryptically, his voice trailing off.
Not that he’d know anything about the type of things which might have happened at wild Fianna Fáil functions in the days before green tea.
Nor, one assumes, was he saying that the good publicans of Killorglin should take the law into their own hands by allowing after-hours drinking.
Perish the thought, and with the Minister for Justice sitting right beside him.
Anyway, Micheál was about to unleash his funny gag. He smiled to himself, folded his arms and focused on Danny, who was all ears.
“I’d say you’ve outdone Leo Varadkar in terms of nightlife and you’re extolling the virtues of going the whole way, like the whole night long, like you know …”
What was he on about?
“Going the whole way … the whole night long, like you know.”
Where was he going with this?
Chief Whip Mary Butler, seated directly behind the Taoiseach, looked a little puzzled.
Bellowing Danny was momentarily silenced.
The Minister for Health made an emergency intervention.
“What?” she hissed loudly from stage left.
Jennifer Carroll McNeill is not a woman easily shocked, but like the rest of us, she was probably wondering where Micheál was headed with his meandering line about knowing the virtues of going the whole way for the whole night long.
Could Mary Lou McDonald be about to enter the presidential race?
The Taoiseach, delighted with himself, was oblivious until he got that little nudge from her and, suddenly, he realised what he had been saying.
He turned, stricken, and stuttered to Jennifer about going the whole way “in terms of nightlife, like!” as his voice went up higher and his accent went full Cork.
“Jaysus,” he chuckled. “Bí curamach anois!”
Telling himself as Gaelige to be careful now.
“So the big issue is drinking ’til 2am. It’s the first time it’s ever been presented to me in the Dáil like this: that you actually want us to go to 3am,” he continued, but now being ultra careful.
“Well, not me,” he hastily added.
No. Not that anyone was thinking that. We were still back with Varadkar making a night of it.
“Until 6am, actually,” observed Sinn Féin’s Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
Danny was on his feet and roaring again. The Taoiseach was trying to talk.
It was like closing time at Puck Fair.
“Taoiseach, your time is up,” called landlady Verona Murphy, or the Ceann Comhairle as she is also known, banging her bell and telling Danny to sit down.
Things were getting a bit rowdy.
Have they no homes to go to?
“Look it,” said Micheál, ignoring landlady Verona who was doing her best to maintain an orderly house and addressing Danny. “I’ve the Minister for Justice alongside of me. He’s heard your pleas.”
Pleas to come down to Killorglin for the festival or try to do something to make sure the publicans get their extra hour when their appeal is heard?
Jim O’Callaghan nodded away. Although it is most unlikely that Senior Counsel Jim is going to hotfoot it down to Killarney or Tralee Circuit Court any day soon to sort out a late exemption.
“He knows what the place is like,” murmured Danny, mysteriously.
The Taoiseach had some good news for him about the Minister. “He’s undertaken to go down to the Puck Fair, okay?”
We didn’t see Jim being consulted on this, but he looked happy enough.
“I will see what I can do to attend as well, but I may not be around at that time,” added Micheál, deftly mapping his escape route.
As it turns out, O’Callaghan has strong family links to the Kingdom and is very proud of his Kerry connections. His father, Jerry, came from Callaghans Cross just outside Castleisland.
This is the sort of fact Danny Healy-Rae would most certainly know.
Although nobody knows if Big Jim or Danny will be “going the whole way – like, the whole night long” at Puck Fair until three in the morning this year.
That’s for the court to decide.
