Fergus Finlay and the way Mary O'Rourke smells

I wrote a letter to the Irish Examiner recently suggesting that Fergus Finlay had spent too much time out in the midday sun after he described Michael McDowell as perhaps the greatest party leader the world has ever known.

In today’s Irish Examiner he attributes the sweet scent of Mary O’Rourke as a sense of hope for Ireland’s future.

Of course on this occasion, unlike his McDowell comments, Finlay has his tongue firmly in his cheek but beneath his wanderings there is a serious message.

Opinion makers like Finlay seem to suffer from a unique blindness in their ability to recognise what people like O’Rourke really represent.

They seem to be totally unaware (or are in denial) that this woman represents the rotten political system that has wreaked so much damage on Ireland and its people.