The British ambassador is hanging up his credentials in September.
Guests at His Excellency’s annual summer garden party on Thursday night were all saying the same thing: “We will never forget Whatshisname.”
That’s not true.
It was only the VIP guest speaker who forgot Ambassador Paul Johnston’s name.
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Everyone else was mortified for Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien, who sailed through most of his speech oblivious to the fact that he kept calling his host “Jonathan”.
He did it four times before his audience snapped and shouted at him to stop.
Darragh set the tone early, addressing his remarks to “Ambassador Jonathan and Nicola, two very good friends of mine ...”
Oops. Never mind.
But it didn’t stop there.
Paul had followed the Irish custom of leaving a statue of the Child of Prague outside in the garden the night before his event to ensure good weather, the Minister said. And how did Darragh know this?
“Actually, Jonathan texted me this morning.”
Guests were on tenterhooks, waiting for the next clanger. Mainlining the Pimms for their nerves.
“It is magnificent to be here in Glencairn again with Jonathan on this special occasion to celebrate the official birthday of King Charles III,” Darragh chirruped to the large gathering on the lawn of the Ambassador’s South Dublin residence.
In an address highlighting the close relationship and many ties between Ireland and the UK, he said King Charles had been “a real friend to Ireland, through difficult times as well”.
Then he name-dropped about having had the pleasure of meeting the king’s late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who, in turn, had the pleasure of Darragh talking to her about horse racing “for a good 20-minute conversation”.
Apparently, people couldn’t get over it.
As nice, friendly speeches go, this one was a white knuckle ride for all concerned – except Darragh, who wasn’t to know his audience was tensely awaiting his next misnaming of the man from His Majesty’s Foreign Office.
“I think the outlook is extremely bright for our nations,” he burbled, mercifully nearing the end of his address. “[But] I am really sad that Jonathan and Nicola will be leaving us soon – that I have to say.”
That is when the crowd intervened.
“Paul! It’s Paul! It’s Paul!” they cried.
“Wha? Wha? I actually know him very well,” Darragh laughed, covered in embarrassment. “My apologies.”
He asked the guests to join him in raising a glass “to partnership, to happiness and health and to King Charles III”. Glasses clinked.
“And Jonathan.”
The ambassador, as one would expect of a career diplomat, took it very well.
There were cheers when JP (Jonathan/Paul) began his remarks by thanking “Brian” for his kind words.
Turning to his wife, he declared: “It’s a great pleasure for Nicola and me – it is Nicola, isn’t it? – to welcome all of you to Glencairn for the king’s birthday party.”
The attendance included Ministers, TDs, senators, the Attorney General, European Commissioner Michael McGrath, members of the Diplomatic Corps and an eclectic selection of guests from business, the arts and the media.
“While I’m sad to be leaving this job in September, I am happy that the relationship between the two governments – which matters a lot to me personally and matters to our country – and the relationship between Britain and the EU are in a much healthier state than when I arrived here in 2022,” said the outgoing ambassador, who spoke very fondly of his time here.
The Johnstons are so fond of the place they have decided to stay . This was Paul’s bombshell “little bit of news” at the end of his speech.
The crowd seemed quite moved, his words sparking a rush of national pride and a rush for the English sparkling wine when he finished.
Naturally, the South Co Dublin crowd was very blase about it all.
Apparently there have been regular sightings of Paul and Nicola in the furniture shops of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown in recent months and everyone in Dalkey knows about it.
“My wife and I decided sometime back that when it came to our eventual retirement, we would like to retire to Dublin because we’ve so fallen in love with the city and the country and the people,” Paul told us after he had toasted the President of Ireland.
So when the opportunity for early retirement came up, he decided to leave the Foreign Office for a new job here.
“We are very excited by it and very happy to be staying here. We were really sort of dreading to have to leave Ireland.”
When he first got here from a posting in Brussels, he assumed he would do his four years and then move back to London or a new posting further afield.
“But we fell in love with Ireland, I suppose. We fell in love with life here and the idea of working here. It was a combination of things, but it seriously had not entered our head until we came here.”
The soon-to-be-former ambassador can’t disclose details of his new job yet. But our spies tell us he may be heading for the third-level sector and a role with the Irish Universities Association, which is headed up by the experienced Jim Miley, a former Fine Gael secretary and chief executive of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and one of the co-founders of MyHome.ie.
Better class of sewage on southside
During Leaders’ Questions on Wednesday, Barry Heneghan, the Independent Government-supporting TD for Dublin Bay North, had an important question about the quality of water in the bay.
Jim O’Callaghan, the Minister for Justice, was on stand-in duty for his party leader. Jim represents the other side of Dublin Bay.
Barry said there had been “a huge issue with E.coli” recently which “needs to be looked at by the Government”.
That sounds like a lovely job for somebody.
“It is not happening on the south side of Dublin,” Barry said. “It is northside swimmers who are being affected by E.coli.”
Jim immediately rushed to the defence of his tribe. “I think the Deputy said it is northside swimmers who are being affected. Southside swimmers are affected as well by E.coli. We are not immune to E.coli on the south side of Dublin.”
It’s just a better class of turd.
Big Jim also did a good job of buttering up gardaí during his stint in the hot seat. But even the most partisan member of the force would have been a bit taken aback by Jim’s effusive vote of confidence.
He was speaking after Fine Gael’s Emer Currie asked about garda numbers outside Dublin city centre. While there is a welcome increased visibility in the city, in areas such as her Dublin West constituency and in other parts of the country people are crying out for more gardaí to tackle low-level offending, antisocial behaviour and more serious crime.
The Minister for Justice replied that the Garda Commissioner has decided that a significant number of recruits will be put in Dublin in the first instance, but others will be transferred to other parts of the country as well.
This all depends on recruiting more people into the force. A recent recruitment campaign saw 6,700 people express an interest in joining up, but that needs to be translated into membership.
“The biggest problem gardaí have is their popularity and their success. People want to see them everywhere.”
That’s a line you don’t hear every day.
Poor Brendan gets cancelled
The Oireachtas occasionally runs information and education sessions for TDs and senators to help them in their work – a kind of in-service training sessions for the politicians.
After the last general election, for example, new TDs were invited to attend a briefing on life in Leinster House from two experienced old hands: former Social Democrat leader Catherine Murphy and former Fine Gael minister Richard Bruton.
Recently, the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission – which in effect manages the place – asked former Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin to deliver a talk to its members on his experience as a member of the first commission which placed control for the running of Leinster House directly into the hands of the members.
After 42 years in national politics – four of them in the Seanad and the rest in Dáil Éireann, he was well placed to give an overview of how the commission has worked over the years and how it has changed since the legislation was first passed.
As a former minister for public expenditure, he was also well placed to talk about how Leinster House is funded.
The meeting was supposed to happen on May 28th. But two days beforehand he was told it was postponed. Nobody seems to know why.
The all-powerful chair of the Oireachtas Commission is Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy, the Independent TD for Wexford, Brendan Howlin’s former constituency. She runs the show.
Some members are wondering if there might be a connection here with Brendan’s sudden cancellation. Because TDs can be remarkably territorial when it comes to their home patch.
Surely not.
Timmy takes to top Tom
It’s taken a while, but the junior minister for agriculture has appointed a new special adviser.
Timmy Dooley is thinking big with his new hire.
He has drafted in a major player in the agriculture and marine sector to run the show – Tom Tynan has worked at the highest levels across a range of business and policy areas for a number of decades.
In the 1990s he was special adviser to Ivan Yates, then minister for agriculture, while more recently he was a key member of former European commissioner Phil Hogan’s cabinet in Brussels for almost seven years.
A former senior Irish Farmers’ Association official and member of the board of Teagasc, Tom is non-executive director of the Marine Institute, Shannon Foynes Port Company and the Agri-Food Bioscience Institute in Northern Ireland.
Timmy is delighted with his new team member.
“He’s a great man – very professional with highly technical skills. Tom brings great experience, particularly as most of the work from a fisheries perspective is in Brussels. He also has great knowledge of the negotiating process there and of the internal workings of the commission. And being political as well is always a help.”
The Minister of State from Clare must be hoping that Kilkenny man Tom might just be the fellah to elevate him from the ranks of the junior ministers to senior hurling status.
While looking after a Fianna Fáil politician will make a nice change for Tom.
