Enda Kenny, taoiseach, at the weekend speaking in Castlebar, his hometown in Western Ireland, made a gaffe by describing locals who don’t share his sunny optimism about the Irish economy as “All-Ireland champion whingers.” After 40 years in national politics Kenny knows well how local or parish-pump politics works in an Irish multi-seat constituency. Kenny’s County Mayo has not won an All-Ireland Gaelic football championship since 1951 and it irritates him that some locals expected at least to cheer more economic benefits in the past five years from the premiership of a local politician.