How do you fit an ego the size of a cathedral into a four-man cell? Whisper in his ear that this is as bad as it's going to get. Liam Lawlor, rock-and-roll rebel of Irish politics, entered Mountjoy Prison on Wednesday morning. Heck, he forgot to bring a guitar.
What a pity. Liam could sing, if he wanted to. Songs of wooden hearts and boys called Sue who threaten to do precisely that if they hear a whistle blowing. Anthems about Quarryvale and Dublin West that would have the audience dancing in the aisles begging for encores.
Might he, late at night, start a rousing chorus of Four Green (rezoned) Fields or Arise and Follow Charlie? Would he take the michael out of his former leader with a parody of Burlington Bertie lisped in the surprisingly tenor tones in which he told reporters earlier in the week that Mr Justice Smyth was only doing his job in sending Liam down for contempt of court?
Not likely. Liam is the man of whom a Liveline listener claimed this week he would serve his term "with honour". What, we may wonder, is the nature of the honour in question? For Liam is not among thieves in the medical unit of Mountjoy, he is among sick criminals and men with HIV. Might it be another honour, the nobler brand like that demonstrated in Wolfe Tone's oration from the dock? Or the latter poetry of Padraig Pearse, whose portrait hangs mutely in a frame over the Taoiseach's desk? But (forgive our slowness), how does a tradition of refusing to recognise the court on grounds of democratic principle evolve into a pattern that encourages you to recognise it while treating it contemptuously?
There is more than a little confusion at times about why Liam does as he does and in whose interest. When he left Fianna Fail on his own recognisance, he cited as one of his reasons the need to keep the playing field free for the Taoiseach to deal with a crisis in the peace process, from which Liam's long war with the tribunals was apparently distracting attention. The Taoiseach didn't deny it.
Such self-sacrifice is in the great tradition to which all good nationalists subscribe. But even this spin isn't quite enough to explain why Liam could swallow the reality of his own legal contempt while insisting the judge was doing his job. It was as though Irish justice had nothing to do with Irish people, or even Irish nationalism, if you were inclined that way.
Liam, it seems, considers himself a patriot throughout his current trials. But he is a patriot with the ball at his feet. The fans stand behind him on Hill 16. Knowing his team is already a man down against fierce opposition and the other lads are all well marked, Liam has no option but to go it alone. Off he goes.
SPECTATORS gasp at his daring as he outmanoeuvres the opposition, bouncing the ball every five strides, seeing the goalposts getting closer and closer when Wham! the enemy gets the ball. What could Liam do? He gathers his strength and mounts a risky slide tackle that goes badly wrong. The other man crumples with South American style theatrics, and the referee deems it a foul.
But Liam shows courage and fortitude in the face of this reversal. He nods at the red card and walks proudly over to the subs' bench, where he sits alone in his Prada tracksuit, ready to take the fall. For all we know, he might have saved the day for his team-mates had he pulled this plucky tactic off. The ref was only doing his job.
We may have a lot to be thankful for in the matter of Deputy Lawlor and the Irish prison system. It is not as though an Irish politician has been disgraced for the kind of antics that get British politicians dragged through the tabloids to the point where they have to resign. At least they spare us those.
When has any Irish politician been discredited for bouncing on a bed in the Meridien Shelbourne wearing a Fanad United jersey while a young actress waits in attendance? When has one been jailed for copping a freebie at the Ritz in Paris?
In fact, the one thing you say with any certainty about the offences Irish politicians have so far been found guilty of is that they are united by their remarkable lack of glamour. Where they have stilettos and schoolmasters' canes, we have wellington boots and the instruments of quantity surveying. There is, after all, absolutely no glamour in the offence of contempt.
So when this tall and tanned but neither young nor lovely Liam walks through the halls of the medical unit in Mountjoy, are we witnessing an evolved form of Irish patriotism, a man for whom the metaphor of football went awry, or a case of contempt that ought be housed in the medical unit there because it is so contagious?
Everybody has a hungry heart, Brucie used to sing. We can forgive the peccadilloes that creates. So some day a TD is caught wearing the wrong jersey in the wrong place: so we laugh about it, and move on.
But say some night when the HIV victims are groaning in pain, and the old triangle is sounding its jingle-jangle along the banks of the Royal Canal, somebody starts to warble The Boys of Kilmichael. Except they change the location to Quarryvale.
Is that the new song of patriotism Fianna Fail wants to hear?
mruane@irish-times.ie