The country\u2019s most controversial politician, Michael Lowry, is the cornerstone of the coalition. That deal could haunt taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/p>\n
The art of the stroke used to be a hallowed practice in Irish politics. To pull a stroke meant wiping the other fellow\u2019s eye, by fair means or foul. The art might involve anything from \u201cbrown envelope\u201d bribes and \u201cnod-n-wink\u201d sneaky deals to a type of sophisticated chicanery by outwardly unsophisticated politicians, known as \u201ccute hoorism\u201d. This was the culture of the Galway tent, so called because of an access-to-power fundraiser the Fianna F\u00e1il party hosted for wealthy businessmen at the west of Ireland horseraces every summer.<\/p>\n
Miche\u00e1l Martin, who was \u2013 eventually \u2013 reinstalled as taoiseach on Thursday, after scenes of uproar<\/a> in the D\u00e1il the previous day, declared the age of the Galway tent dead more than 20 years ago, after state tribunals unearthed secret payments<\/a> made by businessmen to Charles Haughey and Bertie Ahern, his predecessors as Fianna F\u00e1il leaders. Self-described as \u201ca person of substance\u201d, even Martin\u2019s most ardent critics acknowledge his \u201cdecency\u201d.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The country\u2019s most controversial politician, Michael Lowry, is the cornerstone of the coalition. That deal could haunt taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin The art of the stroke used to be a hallowed practice in Irish politics. To pull a stroke meant wiping the other fellow\u2019s eye, by fair means or foul. The art might involve anything from … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}