Ireland Is Not Full . . . Of Eggs Benedict

Anthony McIntyre ☠ It is rare I get soaked to the skin by rain, but yesterday proved an exception.

It led to a sudden dislike of Led Zeppelin's Rain Song because of its lyrics: Upon us all, upon us all a little rain must fall.

Even though I had a short umbrella in my bag, I knew it would prove useless against the wind that propelled the rain in my direction. So, in the bag it remained. This rain is a foreign product, all part of the Great Replacement that wants to replace dry Irish rain with invasive wet foreign stuff.

While it had poured out of the real skies earlier, not the imaginary heavens, the rain had stopped when I left the house to walk to the train station, listening to podcasts about fascism as I go. By the time I reached that destination, I was saturated from the waist down. Three schedules in various parts of Dublin deterred me from turning back and drying off. A fool and his folly are not easily parted despite the advice from my son that it would lash much of the day. Pelted by precipitation was my fate.

When I got to Dublin I met my daughter for our weekly Cappuccino. Her mood was even more grumpy than mine, the apple not having fallen far from the tree.

She had been frustrated by a few things including a failure of the internet at her place, exasperated by her feeling hangry. I offered her lunch but she opted for breakfast. And so the problems of finding eggs benedict began. I can't think of eggs benedict without at the same time having the joke from prison leap into my mind:

What did the two pregnant nuns say to the Mother Superior?

'Sister Benedictus.'

The first cafe we called to was so loud with rock music that we simply vacated our seats and went off in search of another. We found a quieter spot on the same street, took our seats only to discover that breakfast ended at 1130, but we could have a lunch menu. I wasn't for eating so it didn't much matter to me but I could see my daughter's face darken. Back out in the rain, not coming down so forcefully but still annoying, I told my daughter three strikes and we are out, that I had no intention of traipsing around Dublin in the rain just to find 'eggs fuckin benedict.'

In the last chance saloon she settled for dinner as eggs benedict went off the menu 'about twenty minutes ago.' Can Dublin be so dietary challenged that it is impossible to find eggs benedict after 1130? Somebody might blame those who scripted the 1916 Proclamation for that. How Pearse and Connolly didn't figure out what the real needs of the country were baffle me. They clearly lacked foresight. Instead of wasting time on human rights-speak and NGO-talk, promising to cherish all the children of the nation equally and all that, they should have focussed on eggs benedict.

The giveaway is to be located in the names of the seven signatories to the Proclamation: Tom, Thomas, James, Joseph, Pádraig, Sean and Eamonn but no Benny. Which I suppose might not be a bad thing given how it would be claimed by the Benny Hill-types who in their pariah parade strut their supposed patriotism on the streets of the capital, screaming 'nigger' at black workers who for some reason are to be excluded from the humanity proclaimed by the seven signatories and denied citizenship of this society.

A theme that eventually led to a discussion over lunch. My daughter is resolutely opposed to racism and was infuriated by remarks from Simon Harris which she felt blamed immigrants and refugees for the housing crisis. This, she said forcefully between bites of food, is a crisis brought on by a government of landlords looking after their cronies in the landlord business. When I replied that I didn't think it was a government of landlords, she quickly pulled the figures out from the phone. I responded that personal instinct is not what drives government policies but structural properties, that the class background of those who staff government is not the determining factor, and that no matter what party is in government, no more houses will be built. I was waxing Poulantzas while she was opting for a Miliband perspective. She then lashed out at the way black revellers were treated by An Garda during Culture Night events at Tola Vintage, in sharp contrast to how those racially abusing black workers at Coolock were treated by the force.

So, that is what we get when government claims its focus is on providing homes rather than eggs benedict. No sense of priority. And if things continue as they are eggs benedict will soon be served up without the yoke, wrong sort of colour for the racists.

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