"The Strangest That Ever..."

For once the British were not the villains of the piece. And, with their favorite bait removed from the ring, most Irishmen were at a loss to tell what the fight was about at all. "This," wrote the Dublin correspondent of London's News Chronicle, as 1,800,000 Irishmen prepared to go to the polls this week, "is the strangest general election that ever took place. Nobody wants it. Nobody knows what it's about, and nobody, except the candidates, seems to care how it will end."

"Better a Dev You Know. . ." In a sense, you might say, it was a private fight between young (43), clever, soft-spoken Sean MacBride, whose Clann na Poblachta (Republican Party) had successfully challenged the government in last fall's by-elections (TIME, Dec. 1), and old Dev himself. Young Sean, whose early life had been spent in the outlawed Irish Republican Army and whose father had been executed by the British, disavowed any trace of anti-Britishism, but he was vaguely against Dev's policy of keeping Eire in the British pound sterling zone.

De Valera, whose Fianna Fail had grown lazy and complacent in 16 years of uninterrupted rule, seemed to be merely against MacBride. "If you don't return me," he told the voters, "Eire faces disaster." But he had little to promise on his own account. "Better a Dev you know than a devil you don't," was the best slogan Fianna members could think up.

Place Your Bets. The opposition's reply to this was a unified cry of "Anything you can do, we can do better." But beyond that there seemed little chance of agreement between the parties opposing Dev. Clann workers scrawled "Is your trip really necessary?" on posters showing a De Valera rampant with the Fianna slogan, "We are ready to resume the advance." But with equal enthusiasm Laborite heelers amended MacBride posters proclaiming "A New Deal" with the words "Yes, but with the same old pack."

General Richard Mulcahy's once fiery Fine Gael, the last vestige of the Cosgrave government that preceded Dev, had the best electioneering machine (including a company of blue-kilted girl pipers that took Dublin by storm). But--as one of their critics said--"the undertaker's union is working against Fine Gael." Three of their aged front-bench deputies had died during the campaign. And nobody expected much of the Laborites, the fourth party.

There were some independents to swell the anti-De Valera ranks: irreverent, foxy Shopkeeper James Dillon, whose only program for years had been to heckle Dev from the floor of the Dail, and a certain bonesetter who asked re-election on the grounds that he mended all limbs gratis regardless of party affiliation. But the best the combined opposition could hope for seemed to be reducing Dev's majority to a mere plurality, and further confound an increasingly confused government. In that case Dev, who refused to consider joining a coalition, might resign, but the chances of forming a successful coalition without him were so slight that another general election would undoubtedly follow promptly.

Meantime, there was only one thing for a good Irishman to do--place his bets. Sweepstakes were flourishing in every office in Eire last week, and Radio-Eireann, the state broadcasting company, which had timidly refused to air political speeches of any kind, was offering a fat cash prize to the best picker.

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