Grief mixed with relief as PDs apply last rites to body politic
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MARY Harney's eyes shone with the luminous and exhausted calm of someone who had attended the bedside vigil of a dying friend who had finally achieved blessed release, the life-support machine switched off by her own hand.
Nobody quite went so far as to utter the words 'sorry for your troubles', but it was on the tip of their tongues all the same as well-wishing supporters pressed her hand in wordless sympathy. No longer just a party founder but a foundling, as they all were now.
Twenty-three years ago to that very day, young and idealistic, she had been sitting in Dessie O'Malley's house planning the heady and exhilarating birth of a new political party.
Glory days had followed -- 14 TDs returned to the Dail in the 1987 election and, ever since, in government more often than any other party except Fianna Fail. And then the slow and agonising decline until the devastating crush injuries in the 'squeeze' of the last election, with Michael McDowell's ignominious exit from public life outside the RDS, a triumphant mob of Shinners hammering on his ministerial car.
The time to end it all had been then, many agreed at the conference, not limping on 'til they reached the stage of ironic jokes about the 'Progressive Democrat', singular, led by the leader 'Who?'
Box office
The box-office names on which the party had relied for so long were notably absent from the event. No McDowell, no Liz O'Donnell, no Tom Parlon, no Dessie himself. Just Mary, Fiona O'Malley and the bunch of Whos.
More than 70 delegates arrived from Limerick -- that traditional PD stronghold -- and an almost equally impressive number from Galway.
Unsurprisingly, the PDs remained a divided lot right up to the bitter end. There were those who considered the event the funeral of a beloved friend and others for whom it was more like that very modern Irish phenomenon -- one for which the PDs can claim much of the credit -- the celebratory divorce party.
By 4.55pm, it was all over, the decision taken to disband by a slimmish majority of 41 votes -- 201 to 160.
Those PDs who avow there was no rancour, no bitterness may have been speaking too soon. "Where do we go now? an elderly man brokenly asked his wife as they emerged from the room. "Where do we go? Home," she briskly informed him.
Here and there lay hints as to why the PDs had strayed off course. Noel Grealish vigorously defended himself, arguing that he had done nothing to speed up the party's demise and had never dropped hints about joining Fianna Fail. "You shafted us," one member screeched furiously.
Another woman blamed Ciaran Cannon for failing to show strong leadership: "Dead from the neck up -- Fiona would have done much better," she declared. "The Cannon that didn't fire," agreed another. Fiona O'Malley, herself, was grief-stricken - just 16 or 17 when the PDs were formed, she had grown up with them and this was a very sad occasion.
Sirena Campbell had seized a Progressive Democrats banner, umbrella and a little flag as mementos -- "a piece of Irish history that's being consigned and let go", she said, tears in her eyes. She added: "You don't walk out with the head down but with the head held high."
Bob Quinn, who ran as a young candidate in Dublin South Central in 2002 pointed to the PDs' lack of grassroots and fundamental foundation.
He had received great support from McDowell but that was it, he said.
He is now a 'political refugee,' and does not intend to join any party. "There's no one out there that represents my views -- it's just more of the same," he shook his head.
Scarpered
There were fears that Mary Harney had scarpered unseen from the room to escape the media glare, but that wasn't her style.
Ciaran Cannon avowed his continued commitment to politics. He is now considering which party he will join. The unspoken question hung in the air -- which one of them will take him on?
Where had it all gone wrong? Harney was asked by a reporter.
She smiled, paused and gave a heartfelt and very human chuckle that asked: "How long have you got?"
"Because we couldn't get an intelligent man like you to vote for us," was her answer.
- Nicola Anderson
