DO you remember when the parish priest  would patrol  country roads in search of immorality? Or when the parish would have a  week-long mission and the visiting missioner would often thunder damnation for sins which his terrified congregation had never heard  of, let alone indulged in?

Those days are gone, but the morality police in the Irish media have eagerly picked up where the damnation preachers left off. 

For the past week, much of the media north and south have been doing what they do best, swinging their verbal blackthorns as they compete to see who is best at beating the bejasus out of Sinn Fein. You’ve probably heard the story, but a quick summary for those who haven’t.

This blood-hunt began up at Stormont, where a man called Michael McMonagle worked for Sinn Féin. McMonagle was arrested and charged with child sexual abuse, and the next day Sinn Féin ended his employment and his membership of the party.

While waiting for a judgement of his case, McMonagle contacted two Sinn Féin people and asked them to give him a reference for a job. The two Shinners, without consulting their superiors, wrote the references. When their superiors in the party heard word of these references, they began an investigation, but before it could complete both reference writers had quit Stormont and the party.

All straightforward, if a bit sad. But the media morality squad quickly picked up a new scent. There had been a charity event in Stormont attended by Michelle O’Neill and – wait for it – attended by Michael McMonagle, now working for the British Heart Foundation. Conor Murphy in an interview suggested that maybe the British Heart Foundation should exercise ‘due diligence’ in their employment practices.

End of story? You must be kidding. Mass media outrage rent the air, ruffled feathers flew snowstorm-thick.  RTÉ, the BBC, the News Letter, the Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News,  all raised their moral blackthorns and opened a further front against Sinn Féin. For what? 

For employing a man later convicted of child sex abuse, even though Sinn Féin fired the man when they discovered  he was being investigated by the police. For having two PR people who wrote references for McMonagle without seeking their superiors’  permission and who shortly afterwards quit their jobs and the party. But above all, for Michelle O’Neill having been at a Stormont function where she breathed the same air as McMonagle, who was there in his new job with British Heart Foundation. 

Why has this case sent the media morality police wild?

Several reasons. It has a sex abuse element , something which draws some media like flies  to a cow-pat. It involves two now-resigned SF press people who wrote references for McMonagle. And it’s got Michelle O’Neill, who attended that Stormont function. The Irish media are truly enraged that Michelle didn’t... Well, it’s not quite clear what she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t stand on a chair and make speech damning McMonagle, even though he wasn’t yet convicted. Maybe they expected her to effect a citizen’s arrest. Or do a rugby tackle on him.

The media morality police are convinced they can, in the mouth of a southern election, damage Sinn Féin. They’ve got Michelle in their sights and they’re doing their damnedest to get a bead on Mary Lou as well.  

We’ve been here before. Remember the gasps of horror over the Bobby Storey funeral?  Remember the arrest of Gerry Adams in the mouth of another election? 

The  morality police figure if they whack SF hard enough with their blackthorn sticks, then who knows? The Shinners could be shrunk to a truly ineffective political grouping, like happened the Scots Nats, and the whole pesky border poll  thing could be locked underground again and normalcy resumed.

There are big stakes involved here. The morality police are already salivating. Coming up behind them, his face aglow with sweat, panting a little, is the ghost of Senator Joe McCarthy, the patron saint of all media moralists.