Frank Durcan did his county some service

The death last month of Frank Durcan in Spain brings the curtain down on the life of a man who was one of the most colourful and controversial political characters in Mayo.

Across six decades of representation, from 1967 to 2019, Frank Durcan was a huge figure in Mayo politics. He was, it is fair to say, never afraid to call it as he saw it and criticise high-ranking public servants for any perceived waste of public funds or poor decision-making.

Did he ever cross the line in this regard? Without a shadow of a doubt. But many of his council colleagues never came close to that same line, so wary were they of rocking the boat.

Frank Durcan was never afraid to speak truth to power, to hold officialdom to account. At times, he was utterly brilliant in castigating poor decision-making. And if he was able to channel that more often in a measured and less personal way, he and Mayo would have been all the better for it.

Too often, though, his passion got the better of him and he crossed the line. Many is the comment he made at council meetings that were simply not reported on. It was simply too defamatory to do so. But it often made for great theatre if you were at those meetings.

Frequently in his crosshairs were senior management of Mayo County Council, whom he regularly lambasted over various charges of the waste of taxpayers’ money.

I only saw him in action in his last decade as a politician, but it is fair to say that the fire in him still burned.

The first controversy involving Frank Durcan I ever reported on was a meeting he was not even at. It was May 2009 and the last Castlebar Town Council meeting before the following month’s local and European elections. After being a town (or urban) councillor unbroken from 1967 to 2004, and a county councillor from 1974 to 1991, Frank Durcan retired from politics in 2004.

But he was getting itchy feet during the five years that followed and decided to run again in 2009, for both authorities.

At that meeting in Marsh House, then Mayor of Castlebar, Kevin Guthrie (Fine Gael) and Fianna Fáil’s Cllr Aidan Crowley made very pointed references to Frank Durcan, urging the people of the town not to vote for him.

“Council meetings were nearly always disputed by Frank and were more often than not adjourned. For the last five years, we have had none of that,” said Kevin Guthrie.

I rang Frank Durcan for a right of reply. He was in his element.

“I’ll treat those comments with the contempt they deserve. What are they afraid of? They’re clearly afraid of something. I am not in the slightest bit worried and I’m getting a great reception on the doors, as always.

“I didn’t [disrupt council meetings]. Their problem was they never liked to hear the truth,” he said.

He was elected on the first count for Castlebar Town Council, with more than twice the votes of his two critics combined, who both lost their seats. He was also comfortably elected to Mayo County Council, again with more than twice the vote of Messrs Crowley and Guthrie combined.

It showcased his enduring electoral appeal. He never lost a local election across six decades of contests.

Frank had a wide range of supporters. Some who voted for him were anti-establishment, there may have been a protest vote in there, certainly his supporters included many who decried what they say as public sector malaise and inefficiency. More than any councillor I ever witnessed, Frank Durcan spoke to those latter issues.

He did keep a watchful eye on how and where money was being spent, but certainly took it too far at times. I’ll never forget his exchange with John Maughan, the former Mayo football manager, in the old Castlebar Town Council chamber in Marsh House when the latter was Procurement Officer for Mayo County Council.

Frank wanted to know why more Mayo plant hire and machinery businesses were not getting more Mayo County Council contracts. John Maughan said he would prefer local suppliers but was legally bound to go with the best tender.

It was clear from the outset that the two didn’t drink tea, so to speak.

“You’re not going to put the plant hire operators of this county where you put the Mayo team,” raged Durcan.

As you can imagine, Maughan wasn’t too pleased with that comment. Other councillors condemned it too.

It was not an issue that needed to get as personal as it did. Durcan and other councillors had a point on local suppliers losing out to suppliers from other counties but that was not John Maughan’s doing. Procurement procedures was a requirement for Mayo County Council to follow – it was national legislation.

That was Frank Durcan in a nutshell. If he didn’t think someone was doing the right thing, he could lower the blade. Sometimes his argument had merit, other times not. But by making it personal, he often undermined the strength of his argument.

He was first elected to Castlebar Urban District Council in 1967 as a member of Fine Gael. He left the party in acrimony in the early 1980s and became Independent. He was three times Cathaoirleach of the UDC and once Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council. He held both roles at one time, in 1980, a unique achievement.

It was during that term that then Taoiseach Charlie Haughey was honoured in the town of his birth with the unveiling of two plaques at the old Haughey home on Mountain View in the town. Frank was conspicuous by his absence.

He described the event as ‘a vulgar display of ignorance’, lambasting Haughey’s agreement to the event as ‘childish’, saying such commemorations should only take place after someone had died.

Time would prove his assessment of Charlie Haughey quite prescient.

He could be very honourable. He refused to take expenses or attend conferences in his role as a town and county councillor.

He had deep faith. He walked out of a town council meeting in 2011 when the then Mayor, Ger Deere, went with a silent prayer at the start of a meeting, rather than the traditional spoken prayer.

And while some of his outbursts caused pain to those on the receiving end of them, he was capable of real sincerity and kindness too. I recall a discussion in Castlebar Town Council on the high rates of suicide in the wake of the Celtic Tiger crash. He was genuinely troubled about the situations people found themselves in that they might end their own lives. He said that the best thing any of us could do was give people time, if you meet someone on the street, to stop and talk to them and it might be a minor conversation to you but it could have a really positive impact on their day.

He was heavily involved in community life in Castlebar, not just in his role as a councillor. He was a long-serving member of the St Gerald’s De La Salle College Board of Management and was a central figure in the building of the De La Salle sports hall at the school.

His political record across many decades is very apparent. He was to the fore in proposing that Lough Mask be used as the source for the water supply for Castlebar. Many were proposing Lough Lannagh but Cllr Durcan rightly concluded that it would be insufficient. He was one of the leading lights in proposing the council purchase Marsh House in the late 1970s.

He had very good wit too. At one council meeting, Cllr Therese Ruane called for the front of Mayo County Council’s headquarters at the Mall in Castlebar to be cleaned as it was ‘grubby and dirty’.

“And everything in it,” Frank Durcan exclaimed with a smile.

Fundamentally, Frank Durcan was a man who loved his native Castlebar and worked hard all his life to make it a better place to live. His methods did not always endear him to everyone but he did not just talk the talk but walked the walk across six decades of service.