No need to worry about the revolutionaries

There’s a number of observations that need to be made before dealing with the outcome of the local elections in Mayo. The first is that the electorate quite clearly won’t be told what to do. They will make up their own minds and this is especially true of the female of the species. 

Last week I urged the women of Mayo to put political affiliations and personal prejudices to one side and vote for the female candidate of their choice. In all Local Electoral Areas (LEAs) and in the Euros, people were spoiled for choice with more women candidates than ever before putting their name on the ballot paper. It was a pretty outrageous appeal on my part but not necessarily offensive or obtuse, so why was the revolution stillborn?

Now, when making the suggestion of a feminist revolution through the ballot box, I had no great expectation that we would end up with 30 women councillors in the county. The experience of a lifetime has taught me that if you want a positive outcome to a suggestion that women might agree to a certain wise course of action, then the best result is to be accomplished by suggesting something directly opposite to that which you wish to achieve.

It is abundantly clear that women voters did not vote, to any great extent, for women candidates. They clearly showed a preference for men and the outcome would seem to suggest a bias against women. I don’t accept that women have any nailed-down belief that men make better public representatives than females, so why the reluctance to support women candidates? I’m not going to even attempt an answer to that question.

What I am going to suggest is that the electorate in Mayo, female and male, did not need to look far for some excellent female candidates to vote for. Any one, or, indeed all three of outgoing Maria Walsh, Lisa Chambers and Saoirse McHugh could do a job for the Midlands North-West constituency in Europe. Local, but, more critically, national media did little to recognise and highlight what they had to offer. This was especially true of Ms McHugh. Fair enough, she did get a minute or two on some RTÉ election programme alongside five or six other candidates. She outshone the lot of them. They were interested in point scoring, Ms McHugh was interested in making a claim for consideration for the job and she made sense. Had she been afforded half the time allocated to Dublin-centric candidates she would now be well in contention for a seat.

The run–up to the elections here in the county was tepid to say the least. There was nothing in the build-up that was likely to excite the electorate and attract the attention of the national broadcaster. There were no gimmicks (apart from Maxwell’s double decker bus!), no controversy, apart from a half-hearted row about the erection of election posters in Westport, no coffee throwing incidents on the campaign trail, no rows, not even a suggestion of a far right attempt to raise the spectre of a mass migration scare.

It was all very civilised until, of course, our all action Taoiseach decided that he should do a bit of campaigning with his outgoing MEP, Maria Walsh who was thought to be under pressure to retain her seat. The fact that a number of so-called celebrity candidates emerged (Nina Carberry the jockey and strictly come dancer for FG and Cynthia Ní Murchú for the FFers, not to mention RTÉ’s Ciarán Mullooley) seemed to cause a bit of angst among certain candidates. It’s a mystery to me how Luke 'Ming' Flanagan has not been tagged as a celebrity candidate. He has all the credentials. Perhaps he’s not female (no offence intended!) or ex RTÉ.

It could hardly have been a surprise to the Taoiseach, or at least those who have responsibility for his security, he might have to face up to some form of protest in Mayo the home of the Burkes who, going back a couple of hundred years, intermarried, on the rebound with Gráinne Uaile, and who had a fearsome reputation for fighting. The Castlebar Burkes of today, may or may not be related to Risteard an Iarann but whether or no they would not have a reputation for fighting or any inclination towards violence. They do have a strong sense of justice and rightly or wrongly they believe strongly that the continued incarceration of their son/sibling by the courts of this land is an abomination. And, it seems to me, there is a growing number of people who agree with them, if not necessarily with their increasingly frustrated attempts to highlight what they see as an injustice.

The reporting of the incidents in Castlebar and Westport and the suggestion of an assault on a Garda, not to mention the interference with the Taoiseach’s enjoyment of his ice cream, was most unclear. The Burke family was, as one would expect, highlighted but there seemed also to be an undertone of what could only be described as unsavoury elements who availed of the opportunity presented by the Burkes to add to the suggestion of democracy under attack. We do, at times, seem to get our knickers in a twist.

If what occurred in Castlebar and Westport was, as has been suggested, an attack on our much vaunted democracy then there’s no need to worry. The insurrectionists or revolutionaries or gallowglasses aligned to the far right or far left would, on the evidence of what went on during the Taoiseach’s visit to the county, have difficulty organising a pee (not Flynn) party in a brewery, not to mention a coup. We are safe for now and the media could do a better job of dissecting and exposing these so-called threats to our democracy instead of simply throwing accelerant on the ashes of pathetic fallacies.

And so to the results of the local and, still to come, Euro elections. There have been a few successes by those who fancy themselves as the new messiahs with a message of racism, anti-migrants and white supremacy. They will find that it is far easier to spew hate and sow dissention on the sidelines of protests in the dark of night than in the more discerning atmosphere of a council chamber. It is to be hoped that their messages will ameliorate as they see that the task is to improve the lot of their constituents by being constructive and progressive.

For Sinn Féin both nationally and, sadly, locally, it is a case of back to the drawing board. A huge dose of humble pie is on the menu for the next couple of months, but that is not to suggest all is lost. The last general election was something of a disaster because they did not field sufficient candidates to avail of a major swing behind the party. Local elections are a different ball game. Councillors who have served the electorate for decades are not easily displaced as can be seen in the number of 'old' faces returned to Mayo County Council. There will be a welcome for the new faces.

The old hegemony exercised for so long by FG and FF will continue at local level. Nothing wrong with that, after all it is democracy in action. The people have spoken. Sinn Féin will lick their wounds and will be buoyed by the conviction that general elections are different and the prospect of two Sinn Féin seats in Mayo remains viable.

Thought for the day 

Better to have fought and lost than never fought at all