“Daddy, where were you when it happened?”

The moment of the shocking attack (AP)

The Attack On Minister For Health  Mary Harney:

So this is it.

This is the moment that everything changed. Forever.

They say that the world as we know it changed on the 11^th September 2001, but for the people of the Republic of Ireland it is the events of the 1^st November 2010 that have irrevocably scarred the Irish psyche, leaving a country in numbed shock, reeling, searching for answers in the embers of what was once thought of as a nation above brutish barbarism and violent thuggish dissent.

Ireland, that last beacon of hope in a modern world fraught with financial uncertainty and social instability. A country that has served as a model to the world of the Utopian heights a democracy can reach given the freedom to flourish and fulfill its true potential.

A country that single-handedly united Europe, invented the rainbow, ended world hunger and cured cancer.

It has all come crashing down.

All of this lost. All because of a tin of red paint.

Across this green land there were cries of anguish and despair as news of the attack spread. Strangers in the streets united with one and other to share their stories and their really important opinions that mattered; an unspoken bond formed as people, who only days earlier may have had an irrational disliking for the woman entrusted with Ireland's Health Service, now readily agreed that this form of attack was the lowest and cruelest form of terrorism.

Fair and balanced radio presenters like Joe Duffy joined the masses in condemning the attack, calling it “...not just an attack on one of our most beloved Ministers but an attack on the very fabric of our society...”, “...a disgusting, wretched example of the kind of violence that would make a serial killer puke his f**king load”.

In town squares all across Ireland naysayers were hoisted by their necks and hung until they were dead for even suggesting that the “attack” may actually have been exaggerated by the media and that the “attack” was a small price to pay for all the misery caused by Minister Harney in her six years as Minister for Health.

A minutes silence was held in the Dáil today where political friends and foes alike stood side by side, united in their grief and their resolve in facing an uncertain future marred by despicable violence against someone so high up in political office and held in such high regard.

A visibly shaken Gerry Adams arrived by special envoy to address the situation, and perhaps to publicly distance himself from former Sinn Féin councillor/Red Paint Terrorist Mentaler Louise Minihan.  Choking back the tears he issued a statement as he tried to come to terms with madness of it all. 

“Why did it have to be red paint?” he trembled through quivering lips. “Why couldn't it have just been scat? Why couldn't it have just been scat?”

A dark day in Irish politics.