We occasionally get upset with things Vincent Browne writes - and have required sedation after reading things written in his name at Village (not that we will buy it, you understand).
But we also discover part of why Browne holds the dominant position he does in the Irish punditocracy. He has class.
Slugger O'Toole highlighted Browne's Irish Times column yesterday after we'd missed it.
Like most right-thinking people, Browne was clearly disgusted by those dancing on Gerry Fitt's grave - most odiously (outside the fever swamps inhabited by the blogging wing of the IRA) at Daily Ireland, where he was referred to as an 'Uncle Tomas' figure, and worse.
Vincent leaves us with what strikes me as one of the more honest impressions I've seen:
There is something odious and dangerous about the denigration of the likes of Gerry Fitt and the celebration of the lives of those who had part in the infliction of such pain.
I knew Gerry Fitt a bit. He was great company, funny, outrageous and mischievous. I knew a friend of his better. Paddy Kennedy, who is also dead now, was in Republican Labour with Gerry Fitt and he knew Fitt's mind better than Fitt did. Paddy could do an impersonation of Fitt which caught perfectly the man's cantankerousness, waywardness and humour, his inflections and mannerisms.
They fell out when Fitt joined the SDLP on condition he be made leader, leaving Paddy Kennedy alone in Republican Labour, certainly as its only public representative and perhaps its only member. I think Paddy thereafter grieved the loss of Fitt's friendship and camaraderie, although he would not have acknowledged that. Gerry Fitt left that sort of impression.
Hat-tip Slugger
What was lost in the rejection of Sunningdale
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