Paddy McGuinness has cast an amused eye over republican reactions to the Royal Wedding in his column in the Sydney Morning Herald,18 May 2004: www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/17/1084783450721.html
. He writes that he thought of watching the Copenhagen ceremony in one of the local inner city Balmain pubs, but decided that would be impossible because the sound was bound to be drowned out by the noisy grinding of republican teeth.
After all,he asks, we are all republicans in Balmain, aren’t we?
"Like the rest of the inner-urban middle classes who of course refrained from having anything to do with this orgy of monarchism – after all they voted solidly against monarchism back in 1999, as did most of the journalists and editorialists who were gushing all over the media about Mary and Fred."
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"The rather weak excuse some of them gave for their obvious enthusiasm was that it wasn’t so much monarchism that they hated, but the British monarchy."
Paddy says there may be some excuse for this among those of Irish descent, but it is still not a valid reason for choosing one political system over another.
He adds that it must have been a bit of a problem for Mark Latham, who had just put republicanism back on the political agenda. This is at precisely the same time when the public have made it perfectly clear that most of them enjoy monarchs and aristocrats all over the place.
They also think, says Paddy that the idea of a future Australian queen (even if she is now a Danish citizen) is a pretty good one