A defaced poster for Val Hanley (the Cowan reference is to the embattled Taoiseach) – Val lost his seat at the previous election, and did not win a seat this time either. Another [new] Fianna Fail candidate in the same constituency did get elected.
A few weeks ago, the Google Car drove past me, so I’m looking forward to seeing myself on d’internet whenever they update the Irish maps. There will be lots of other faces visible too, hanging from lamp-posts, telephone polls and advertising hoardings. No, it’s not a revolution [though I suspect some citizens might see the odd politician swinging from a lamp-post as a good start] – I’m referring to the election posters that have bloomed from every available spot in the last month. Last Friday was election day in Ireland, for both local [i.e. city or county] and European representatives. The government, which consists of a coalition of Fianna Fáil [biggest party in the state], the Green Party [much smaller] and some independents, isn’t very popular right now, and it was widely expected that their ire would be visited on the local representatives of those parties.
Hildegarde Naughton was another new candidate who got elected. She replaced John Mulholland as the Fine Gael representative in the west of the city.
The outgoing situation was FF had 3 seats , Greens had one seat, Labour had 3, Fine Gael [the main opposition party] had 3 and there were 5 independents. The new situation is that FF still have 3 seats [though not the same candidates], the Greens have lost their seat [the Greens have taken a hammering nationally], Fine Gael still have three seats and Labour increased their representation to 5 seats [6 if you count one of the Independents who used to be part of the Labour Party].
Discarded…Niall O Brollcháin lost his seat in this election.
The backlash against Green Party candidates will have a serious impact on their campaign in the next general election – it seems that many of their supporters haven’t forgiven the party for entering government with Fianna Fáil after the last election.
Interestingly, former members of the Progressive Democrats [a party which has disintegrated since the last election, but whose 2 TDs still support the government – one is Health Minister] did ok – 2 of the three remaining independnet candidates are former PDs. Sinn Fein didn’t do so well – they didn’t get any candidates elected, and a sitting councillor who had left the party a couple of years ago, lost his seat.
A poster for Daniel Callanan with a Sinn Féin poster in the background. Daniel left Sinn Féin two years ago citing a lack of support from the leadership. Dan had adopted Obama’s campaign slogan which turned out to be a tad inaccurate.
I was looking forward to meeting the candidates who called to the door while canvassing, particularly the sitting councillors. Between the water situation and the traffic congestion, it’s hard to see how they could have been any less effective. Alas, I only met one candidate in the flesh. When Hildegarde Naughton called to the door, I was convalescing from a bad cold, and was asleep when the doorbell rang. I was not at all happy to be roused from my addled slumber, and it was a very terse and short conversation [sorry about that, Hil]. Which was a pity because, apart from her campaign promises, I really wanted to ask her about her name.
A defaced Labour Party poster. Susan O’Keeffe was the journalist that broke the story which led to the Beef Tribunal.The graffitti refers to the next referendum on the Lisbon treaty.
The European elections was a little more complex. The North-West constituency is a hodgepodge of nine counties from three of the four provinces, from Donegal to Clare – there are three seats available. It is very hard for a candidate to be truly representative of the entire area. Fianna Fail’s outgoing MEP, Sean O’Neachtain, [and a Galweigan] would have had a fair chance of re-election, but ill-health forced him to withdraw just before the election. the party drafted in two candidates [Paschal Mooney and Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher, from Leitrim and Donegal respectively] from the northern part of the constituency – neither of which would have much connection with Galway or Mayo. The outgoing Fine Gael MEP, Jim Higgins, is from Mayo so he would hope to draw plenty of support from across Connemara. A further difficulty for the Fianna Fail candidates is that the other outgoing MEP, Marion Harkin [Independent] lives in the north of the constituency too (she lives in Sligo but lived in Leitrim previously). The Labour candidate also lives in Sligo, so the north-west base is, if anything, over-represented.
Flogging a dead horse or about to rouse the slumbering beast of anti-Lisbon Treaty sentiment ? Defaced Ganley poster in Knocknacarra.
The European vote had a interesting subtext. There will be a rerun of the Lisbon Treaty referendum sometime this year, and the candidates, to some extent, would be judged based on their support or resistance to it. All of the major parties (Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Labour) are in favour of it. During the last referendum, a new EU-wide party called Libertas was founded by Galway man Declan Ganley, in order to campaign [successfully] against the treaty. Ganley was standing for MEP in this election emphasised that he was the only local candidate for Galway. He also stated that if he was not successful in this election, he would not be involved in campaigning against the next Lisbon treaty referendum [The west recorded the highest anti-Lisbon vote at the last referendum, so the level of support for Ganley would be a reasonable bellweather for the next referendum].
In the end, Marian Harkin, Jim Higgins and Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher were elected. Ganley got around sixty seven thousand votes and has announced that he will leave national politics.
NOTE. I took these pictures on the road just outside my house on sunday morning. I plan to go back next Sunday morning to see if any remain – candidates have seven days to remove their posters or face litter fines.