{"id":9822,"date":"2010-02-04T07:02:46","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T12:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9822"},"modified":"2022-10-17T06:59:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T10:59:18","slug":"mrs-robinson-northern-ireland-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9822","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. Robinson, Northern Ireland style"},"content":{"rendered":"

An absolutely fascinating account<\/a> of the brou-haha surrounding Iris Robinson, wife of Peter Robinson, First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. A recent BBC documentary about the scandal has got everybody talking. The piece is by Anne Enright, recent winner of The Booker Prize for The Gathering<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, her brutal (sometimes unreadably so) story about a big Irish family that was so claustrophobic I had to put it down to catch a breath of air. (One of my posts on it here<\/a>.) But it cannot be argued that this woman can write. There were passages in The Gathering<\/i> that were as good as it gets. Her writing pierces, sears, the reader. You can’t escape.<\/p>\n

I also am in love with Anne Enright as an interview subject. She certainly gives good interview. Her thoughts on Ireland, and Irish writing, and Joyce, and John McGahern, and the whole canon of them (mostly male) is fascinating. I always prick up my ears when I see an interview with her, I know it’s going to be good stuff. She’s a bit wild. A bit un-pin-down-able. Very funny, too, which you would never know from the mostly humorless The Gathering<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And her account here of Iris Robinson, a 60 year old politicians’ wife, who has had an affair with a 19-year-old boy, which involved a siphoning off of funds from the Castelereagh Borough Council to give to him, and now her hospitalization, her psychiatric issues (long-standing), and the whole crazy terrain of Northern Irish politics is amazing – I couldn’t stop reading it. Here’s a brief excerpt that certainly shows the Anne Enright tang and tartness, but you should really read the whole thing:<\/p>\n

In a statement made before the documentary aired, Iris said that \u00e2\u0080\u0098severe bouts of depression\u00e2\u0080\u0099 altered her mood and personality. \u00e2\u0080\u0098During this period of serious mental illness, I lost control of my life and did the worst thing that I have ever done.\u00e2\u0080\u0099 Her mental state is a matter of some political significance. \u00e2\u0080\u0098She is presently receiving treatment from a psychiatrist,\u00e2\u0080\u0099 her husband said at a post-revelation press conference and \u00e2\u0080\u0098the solicitor was unable to take instruction from her because of her illness.\u00e2\u0080\u0099 He seems to imply that Iris is in some quasi-legal sense insane.<\/p>\n

Being mad in Northern Ireland is different from being mad in any other place. The Robinsons come from a community in which people talk to God and He talks right back to them. \u00e2\u0080\u0098I have forgiven her,\u00e2\u0080\u0099 said Peter Robinson. \u00e2\u0080\u0098More important, I know that she has sought and received God\u00e2\u0080\u0099s forgiveness.\u00e2\u0080\u0099 These communications from God can be fairly abstract, they can be politically convenient, they seldom involve what the rest of the world call auditory hallucinations, but there is no doubt that the sense of conviction they carry can be overwhelming.<\/p>\n

There is also a particular flavour to Northern Irish paranoia. A system of spies, counterspies and informers was in place in the province from the 1970s; British intelligence listened, watched, misinformed. They checked sheets for sperm or explosives with the help of the Four Square Laundry van. Annoyed at long-standing rumours that her husband beat her, Iris has said that \u00e2\u0080\u0098this malicious lie was started by the [British] government in an attempt to blacken Peter\u00e2\u0080\u0099s name when he was protesting at the Anglo-Irish Agreement. It took root because I was in hospital 17 times during that period with gynaecological problems.\u00e2\u0080\u0099 This is a lot to unpack. It may all even be true. Slightly more strange is her claim that Peter\u00e2\u0080\u0099s steak was laced with rat poison when they ate in a restaurant on the outskirts of Belfast which had \u00e2\u0080\u0098a very nationalist staff\u00e2\u0080\u0099. But then, who\u00e2\u0080\u0099s to say? The loyalist community could trust neither their Catholic neighbours nor the British government to whose queen they professed such shouting, undying and possibly unwanted loyalty.<\/p>\n

It is interesting in this context to look at the DUP\u00e2\u0080\u0099s obsession with sodomy, not the activity perhaps so much as the word; one that is to be said out loud, without fear; one that should be repeated, shouted, written down for all to see. Paisley was always a great man for naming and shaming. \u00e2\u0080\u0098I denounce you as the Antichrist,\u00e2\u0080\u0099 he shouted, in the European Parliament, at Pope John Paul II. \u00e2\u0080\u0098Harlot\u00e2\u0080\u0099 was also a favourite, but this was rarely applied to an actual woman, being reserved for the Church of Rome. The same applied to \u00e2\u0080\u0098whore\u00e2\u0080\u0099, as in, \u00e2\u0080\u0098of Babylon\u00e2\u0080\u0099. The purity, in this uncracked patriarchy, of their own women, was a given; what they had to guard against were the sins of men. In 1977 Paisley added to the gaiety of several nations when he was shown on the news walking around with a placard that said \u00e2\u0080\u0098Save Ulster from Sodomy\u00e2\u0080\u0099. His campaign was a response to the liberalising laws of Westminster, which were threatening to leave this entrenched culture behind. Sodomy, in 1977, symbolised everything. Betrayal. Isolation. The future.<\/p>\n

Iris Robinson may not have been in full health when she made her peculiar statements about homosexuality, but if they are evidence that she was unwell, then so are the other members of her party. The radio interview which lost her the sympathy, not just of the wider world, but also, crucially, of Selwyn Black, happened on 6 June 2008. By midsummer, she and Kirk McCambley were lovers. Whatever was happening to her in those weeks, it wasn\u00e2\u0080\u0099t that grey old beast, depression. Indeed, looking at the way she led her life, you might conclude that Iris was more often up than down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing.<\/a><\/p>\n

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An absolutely fascinating account of the brou-haha surrounding Iris Robinson, wife of Peter Robinson, First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. A recent BBC documentary about the scandal has got everybody talking. The piece is by Anne Enright, recent winner … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[35],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9822"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9822"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182480,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9822\/revisions\/182480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}