Timing is everything when governments are in difficulties with something to hide. The long awaited report of Mr Justice Barron into the UVF bombing of Dublin and Monaghan away back in 1974 has been released against the background of the Christmas decorations.
That was one of the most terrible crimes of the evil men who plotted to smash the Sunningdale Agreement. It involved the murder of 33 innocent men, women and children and the wounding of many more.
The report tells us nothing new about the criminals involved but the world and his wife and television viewers everywhere have long since concluded that when the bombers crossed the border they were in collusion with the British security forces and that there was a mighty cover-up allowing the miscreants to disappear without trace.
But what is new is Mr Justice Barron's amazing criticism of the Dublin Fine Gael/Labour coalition government's handling of the situation, their lack of concern for the injured and bereaved in Monaghan and Dublin and the unexplained disappearance of files from the Department of Justice.
A mystery surely?
Then there was the equally inexplicable botched Garda investigation into the bombing and the guilty non-cooperation of London over a crime that screamed to heaven for the truth and the apprehension of the perpetrators. Sunningdale and the first power-sharing agreement was allowed to collapse by Prime Minister Wilson and his woefully weak secretary of state Mervyn Rees.
Rees swallowed the big lie, still extant, that the then power-sharing government was brought down by a loyalist workers strike.
The truth was that UVF armed gangsters prevented the workers turning up to work that day by isolating them in their home estates.
The history books have got it wrong. So far from being a 'workers strike' this was closer to a loyalist style fascist putsch.
James Callaghan is quoted by Tim Pat Coogan as claiming that Sunningdale should have been defended. The Taoiseach of the Dublin coalition, Liam Cosgrave, signed that agreement with Ted Heath at Sunningdale. In his cabinet at that time was the odd ball Conor Cruise O'Brien.
Now in view of his subsequent strange flirtation with UK Unionist Bob McCartney up north, the question arises where did the 'cruiser' stand at that critical moment?
The Barron Report has been in Bertie Ahern's hands since October.
Why wait to the season of goodwill and the build-up to Christmas to launch this grim reminder of a disgraceful chapter in our history? Is the calculation that somehow in the prevailing atmosphere of Christmas that awful day will fade into the background of our thoughts with all the other distressing scenes of the past?
In a lighter view, let us consider the predicament of the 108 newly elected MLAs to the still suspended Stormont Assembly.
Here they are, weeks later, floating in mid air like Mahomet's coffin with nowhere to go as old man Paisley and his befuddled clan, not knowing what to do with their tin-pot victory, just sit tight.
Into the vacuum rush the Grand Masters of the Grand Orange Lodge (not so grand nowadays). According to leaks through the keyhole they are about to embark on the impossible task of turning the clock back (not to 1690 but to the good old days of the twenties and thirties when the now shattered loyalist tribesmen hi-jacked power for 50 years.
Their dream is one big happy unionist Orange family.
Too late with all the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men dashing off in all directions. Meantime the Stormont speaker, Lord Alderdice – taking pity on the bemused MLAs – has invited them to Stormont for drinks at a reception on December 18.
John Dallat of the SDLP says this is a "daft" idea, likening it to drinking cocktails as the band played when the Titanic was sinking!
Will the guests be shown their seats and told "Gentlemen these are the seats you will occupy. But we don't know when, if ever?"
