...or were you surprised to learn that Mrs. Robinson was alive and living in Ireland?

As long as the Irish aren't killing each other, or members of the British military, Americans normally don't follow the sturm and drang of politics in Dublin or Belfast. However nothing gets our hearts racing and our toes tapping like the scent of a good scandal and there's a dilly unfolding in the Old Sod.


Since Our Man Clinton helped broker the Good Friday Accords in April 1998, the Protestant DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) and the Catholic Sinn Fein have been haltingly marching toward maintaining a government that will insure everyone's rights and keep the IRA off the barricades. It's rare to encounter a story about the government in Belfast without seeing the word "fragile". Both sides have compromised and, although the process is contentious, the peace has held.


The next phase is for the police and justice departments in the North to be transferred from London to Belfast. In that the police in Northern Ireland have been viewed by the Catholics as the oppressive arm of the Protestant majority, this is a big deal. Naturally, the Protestants are dragging their feet at the prospect of losing exclusive control of the only armed force in the country. Tempers are running high and resignations are being threatened.


Proving once again that politics and farce are first cousins, the leader of the DUP, Peter Robinson, has been forced to "stand aside" temporally amid a delightful scandal involving his wife Iris and her teenage lover. Mrs.Robinson (the British press is having a field day with the name) was also a member of the DUP and was expelled last week. The issue isn't the impropriety of shtupping a teenager (Mrs. Robinson is 60), but because Mrs. R used a loan to set the young man, Kirk McCampley, up in the cafe business. Apparently the Irish don't care who you sleep with as long as you don't declare the hotel cost as a business expense.


The story is instructive only in that it begs comparison with the recent transgressions among American politicians. In Ireland, any sexual scandal in the family, even if it wasn't the officeholder directly is grounds for resignation. In America, you can boink: 1) Argentine news women, 2) your chief of staff's wife, 3) every hooker in Louisiana or even, 4) the guy in the next stall and blithely show up for work the next day. You can run as the "family values" candidate even if you're single-handedly trying to start multiple families. My Irish is a little rusty so I don't know the words for hypocrite, shame-faced or fraud but I'm guessing they don't have English equivalents.


But I digress. The issue is the tryst in Belfast. No indication has emerged as to the future of the Robinson marriage. (Fortunately, the Prods take a more liberal view of divorce than do the Papists.) Mrs. Robinson has yet to explain why she abandoned the traditional pen and pencil set as a high school graduation present in favor of a south Belfast cafe. Perhaps "it's a little secret. Just the Robinson's affair. Most of all you've got to hide it from the ..press". Cou cou ca cho!