The last refuge of irony

They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. Or is it satire?

Whichever it is, I know it’s not irony. Irony has a much better reputation. It’s the Honda Accord Euro of wit: classy, effective, understated. Things ‘drip’ with irony, like honey from the comb, or blood from a wound. But the strangest and most delicious aspect of irony is that it is usually invisible to the very the person speaking the words. When Caiaphas says that it would be better that one man should die for the people, rather than the whole nation perish, he does not realize the bittersweet truth he is uttering, although we as readers do.

Likewise, I know of a healing ministry that only keeps its doors open because of bequests from departed members, who of course have repudiated the effectiveness of that ministry in the most effective way possible—they being dead yet speaketh, with an irony that (one suspects) the current members do not hear.

All of this brings me to a sign I passed today outside a primary school. The inspiring quote on the signboard was this: “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative—Oscar Wilde”.

One could see this as an ironic and perhaps unwise quote for a primary school to place before its students. I can imagine a smart 10-year-old claiming with all the authority of Oscar Wilde that his abysmal times tables were merely a sign of his superior imagination.

But real irony didn’t drip so much as cascade, because the school the sign was in front of was St Margaret Mary’s Roman Catholic Primary School. A Roman Catholic school approvingly quoting Oscar Wilde? The Church that gave us the Magisterium and Papal Infallibility poo-pooing consistency?

Perhaps irony is too small a word.