In a development that has shocked precisely nobody with functioning moral compasses, a Dublin court has delivered a guilty verdict in the case of an individual who allegedly attempted to murder a child. The details, as they filtered through the gin-soaked fog of my consciousness, involved a creeping sense of horror that even I, a man who has seen a pigeon try to mug a pensioner, found deeply unsettling.
The UK security services, in a move that suggests they can occasionally tear themselves away from debating the merits of different types of bafflingly expensive cheese, have commended the Irish police. 'Commended' being the stick-on medal for doing the bloody obvious: catching someone who tried to harm a child. The commendation was delivered, presumably, with the same enthusiasm one might reserve for complimenting a man for not setting fire to his own trousers.
Let us unpick this. The trial was, by all accounts, a grim parade of evidence that would make even the most hardened cynic weep into their pint of plain. The accused, whose name I shall not dignify with repetition, stood accused of an act so black, so devoid of humanity, that it makes one question whether we are indeed evolved from apes or rather from something resembling a mouldy courgette.
The verdict itself, a resounding 'guilty', was greeted with a collective sigh of relief from the public, who promptly returned to arguing about the price of rent and whether the new Luas line is actually going to be finished before the heat death of the universe. The child, blessedly, is alive. That is the only fact that matters. The rest is just noise.
And what noise it is. The UK security services, in their statement, praised the 'swift and effective work' of An Garda Síochána. 'Swift' being a relative term, given that justice in these cases tends to move with the speed of a sloth wading through treacle. But credit where it's due: they got their man, or at least their thoroughly unpleasant human-shaped hole in the fabric of decency.
Now, I shall raise a glass of my beloved aviation fuel (Gordon's, naturally) to the Gardaí, to the court, and to the child who will, one hopes, grow up to write scathing satirical columns about the absurdity of it all. But for now, we shall settle for a simple, unambiguous verdict: guilty. And to the accused, a piece of advice: prison might be a step up from the public opinion you've engendered.
This, dear readers, is the world we live in. A world where children need protection from those who should know better. A world where the police do their job and are 'commended' for it, as if catching a child-harming monster were an optional extra on a job description. It is right that they are praised. It is wrong that their praise is necessary. But then, what in this gin-soaked, irony-poisoned existence is ever right?
I bid you goodnight, and may your nightmares be less vivid than the reality. Cheers.
