Lest we forget - the dawn of a new, well, everything

Ah, it's easy to forget the bright hope that shone upon our land just two years ago before it all sank under the lies and broken promises, that first Dáil speech:

"It is said that the tomorrow imprinted on our ancestral retina is our today. So, when our children look into our eyes, I want them to see a future where kindness, goodness, dreams and imaginings, strength and belief passed silently and unobtrusively from mother to daughter and father to son over the millennia, merge to create a life of authenticity, honesty, dignity, compassion, brilliance, creativity, purpose, confidence, generosity, affection, laughter and heart, a life where they can plan, hope, dream and live their dreams in their own country.  [Unless their mother says she's suicidal, in which case, pity about you]

That our lives and futures are predicated on one thing is true. That is why today I enter into a covenant with the Irish people. In these times of crisis, full of many unknowns, honesty is not alone our best policy but our only policy. The new Government will tell the people the truth regardless of how unwelcome or difficult that might be. We will tell it constantly and unreservedly. It is the only way because the people always have a right to know. I use the word “covenant” over “pledge” and “promise” because I believe the old ways of politics damaged us not alone financially, but emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. The word “covenant” restores a sense of heart, soul and spirit to leadership and our shared national life.  [If you don't count the broken promises made before the election, the commitment not to legislate for abortion, and the lies told about the Holy Father and ignoring his response when it came]

"This is our country. This is our journey. Yes, we are in times without precedent but I believe that for Ireland this current crisis is the darkest hour before the dawn, that we have a generational lightness of soul, that in the long Hibernian nights on the western edge of Europe we remembered the light that went before, imagined the light to come. We are a people looking always and ever to the possibilities of a new day. That new day is here, a bright new day where there is no gap, where the people and its Government are one again, [Now where have I heard that before,  Volksgemeinschaft? a day when our people are united in cause. Seamus Heaney said: “You have to try to make sense of what comes, remember everything and keep your head.” We will. Together and for our country let us believe in our future. For Ireland and each other, let us lift up our heads, turn our faces to the sun [Really, Cara al Sol?  The anthem of the Falange] and, as has been already said, hang out our brightest colours [and a bit of Michael Collins for good luck]. This is the first day of a journey to a better future. That future will be achievable when Ireland can again take charge of its own destiny, when by the centenary of the 1916 Rising we can prove to be the best small country in the world in which to do business [bit of a collapse of rhetoric], to raise a family and to grow old with dignity and respect."

Enda Kenny, March 9, 2011.