Snout the door ‘Piglet’ hogs the spotlight as Merriongate texts land Leo & Co in the Pooh

The Pooh hit the fan for Leo & Co

Dr Katherine Zappone and Leo Varadkar.

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Deirdre Reynolds

September 05 2021 02:55 PM

Social media went into meltdown on Wednesday night after Leo Varadkar released his texts relating to ‘Merriongate’.

The texts between the Tánaiste and the former Minister for Children Katherine Zappone were presumably supposed to draw a line under the controversy surrounding her appointment as UN Special Envoy in July.

But the thread, which started innocuously enough with ‘Hi Leo, from the Piglet!’, only landed the Cabinet in a whole new pile of Pooh over who knew what and when, and more importantly, why anyone would call themselves after a small anthropomorphic pig.

The Temple Bar wine bar that she was, in fact, referring to has been snout the door ever since.

Read More

• Merriongate fallout continues as Tanaiste releases texts to Katherine Zappone and Simon Coveney
• Simon Coveney deleted crucial texts relating to ‘Merriongate’ gathering

Still, in a world where you can be a ‘Mutti Merkel’, ‘Sleepy Joe’ or ‘Little Rocket Man’, who can blame people for assuming the American-Irish politician had simply embraced a Dáil Éireann nickname after once wearing a pink jumper to work, not least after Mick Wallace infamously labelled the ever-glamorous Mary Mitchell O’Connor ‘Miss Piggy’ in 2011.

From the ‘Teflon Taoiseach’ right through to ‘Leo the Leak’, Zappone certainly wouldn’t be the first Irish politician to secure a sobriquet, although, of all the animals of Hundred Acre Wood, surely she’s more of an ‘Owl’, famed for his reading glasses and portentous speeches, than a ‘Piglet’.