FOUL whisperings are abroad. Mayor John Moran, a man more sinned against than sinning, once more comes face-to-face with the 40 elected members of Limerick City and County Council in the weeks ahead as they return to the merry business of local governance.
In the shadows of Merchant’s Quay, carrion men tell this humble scribe that mischief could very well be afoot in the months ahead.
Nothing new there, as there’s always some foul deed being wooed in Council chambers.
Fine Gael’s butcher boys ready themselves now, plotting in the wings, sharpening the daggers. And if it’s not those roguish blueshirts in the shadows, it’s an animal of a different political colour and a lean and hungry look.
These days since the dawn of Limerick’s first directly-elected Mayor have been no beach party. The dogs of war constantly cry havoc, planning some foul play or other, as our new ambitious sovereign leads onto fortune.
The ides of March have come, indeed.
As far as Fine Gael is concerned, it’s their party and not only will they cry if they want to, but there will be machinations, hollowness, treachery, and ruinous disorder as long as they hold the majority vote in Council. Their bedfellows in Fianna Fáil, of a similar mind, are bound in their shallows and miseries.
Mayor Moran’s valiant ways they can just about abide, but if they have their way, it’s his ambition they would slew him for.
That ship, I wager, has sailed, with orders from on high handed down to pack away their nets and choke away their devilish intent. Fianna Fáil certainly gave this impression before the summer recess, with heads bowed and lips pursed, brow beaten into subjugation, and insurrection now only a hideous dream.
Empty bluster is the cornerstone of these Limerick statesmen’s tricky trade, and piteously performed. But what does the future hold for our duteous leader and his band of toad-spotted traitors? How will Mayor Moran quell those raging appetites that are most disobedient and refractory?
We have witnessed over the last 12 months that envy indeed does breed unkind division, and with that comes ruin and confusion. Our scurvy politicians that vehemently intend deceit have allowed the first year of their five-year term grow to waste with their ear-kissing arguments. Wicked and groaning for burial, it’s time they sat now with still and quiet conscience.
A peace, after all, is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.
Our Mayor has been metaphorically whipped and scourged with rods, nettled and stung with pismires, but he still stands firm to weed and pluck away this aged tyranny. His wit still stirs, and with any luck his envious emulators will now learn to stop dishing out their grievous charge and snoring lies as the political players take to the stage once more.
Take heed councillors, when levity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
