It is certainly possible to be half-witted. But is it possible to be half-racist? The Dublin Central byelection has given us two prime examples of the first condition that are also two test cases of the second. Bertie Ahern and Gerry Hutch have tried out different versions of a-la-carte chauvinism.

The anonymous woman who surreptitiously filmed Ahern’s attempt to canvass her is a table d’hote xenophobe. Every kind of stranger is on the menu: “the hordes of foreigners coming into the country”; “all these Indians that have a space programme”; “these Muslims [that] have 47 countries”; “all these Africans that have a massive continent, massive natural resources”; “these rich Indians coming in and buying up all the property and they want our kids to live in sheds or something”.

She’s not convinced by Ukrainian refugees either: “The Ukrainian war is only in one tiny little place and Ukraine is a massive country.” All of these incomers “don’t give a shit about Ireland, they don’t have the feeling that we have. Our culture is gone.”

This is what the whole hog looks like. But Bertie reached for the bacon slicer. Instead of challenging these sweeping claims, he thought he could offer this potential voter some satisfying selections from her smorgasbord of prejudices. “The ones I worry about are the Africans,” he suggested, going on to specify the Congolese. As for the Muslims, the first generation is okay but we should be very concerned about its children.

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