There was no sign of the iciness of his more formal television persona when Martin McGuinness took a stroll in Galway
A GOLDEN October afternoon in Galway and Martin McGuinness is doing what you do: waltzing down Shop Street with all the time in the world. The Sinn Féin man is in good form, and if he doesn’t know it already, he quickly learns the cobblestoned street leading towards the Spanish Arch is a multinational kind of hang-out spiced with musicians and beatniks that could belong to any decade or, more accurately, none.
McGuinness tells Americans and French and Polish people Galway is a great town and it sounds like he knows the place well, and there is an electric recognition in the eyes of those enjoying afternoon pints under a pub awning. They jump up to meet him, camera phones at the ready. “It’s great to see him in the flesh,” one woman says.
Young men in Celtic FC football shirts pose beside him, beaming. Two Tralee women offer a kiss on either cheek. He makes calls to Taaffes and Tigh Neachtain’s (“Oh God, I’m not supposed to be here,” protests one patron when a television camera points at her) and it would have to be in the Dáil Bar at the junction of Cross and Middle Streets that he is prevailed upon to get behind the counter and pull a pint of plain. For a man famed for his abstemious ways, he handles the tap as if he has been there once or twice before.
As he walks past the Front Door, patrons at the window wave and beckon to him. Ireland must be the only country in the world where you can have an afternoon dram and hail a candidate for president of the land in for a casual chat. But McGuinness rolls in and greets those at the table like long lost friends. In fact, he meets several folk from his years in Derry on his walk.
Not long after that, he meets the one disgruntled man on Shop Street, who marches up to him and proceeds to launch into a passionate diatribe. With the buskers and the shoppers it is hard to hear exactly what is said, but the name of Robert Emmet is invoked, France and Germany are cited in less than flattering terms and, jabbing an indignant finger into the chest of the Sinn Féin candidate, he issues the unforgettable command: “Put that in your f***in speech.”
“All right,” McGuinness says evenly, and moves on.
Galway people of a certain generation still talk of the cold winter evening in 1990 when Brian Lenihan, regarded as president-elect just weeks before the “mature recollection” fiasco, caused mayhem by walking down these same streets surrounded by the faithful. McGuinness’s walkabout yesterday was nothing like that, but he is clearly comfortable with these whirlwind strolls and there is none of the iciness of his more formal television persona.
At O’Brien’s newsagents he calls in to buy a copy of An Phoblacht and, unlike his party leader Gerry Adams, who only had sterling when he called into the same shop to buy his copy, McGuinness was carrying local currency. He gave Easons a skip, probably figuring he had seen enough books during the Vincent Browne debate to do him a while.
On Cross Street he spoke to Marco Bord, a Leaving Certificate student from St Joseph’s school, known locally as “the Bish”. Marco asked him about his salary intentions and he told him that of the £114,000 (€132,000) he has been earning in Northern Ireland as a politician, he has taken a payment of £360 a week. He told of his plan to use his presidential salary to create six jobs for young people, and Marco seemed impressed by this.
Outside Ryan’s Menswear, he spoke to Elakle Sami from Palestine, who wanted to know what he could do for his homeland if he was in the Áras. Beside him stood Rashfan, from Syria, who has been in Ireland for seven years and has “a stamp”, but feels as if he is in a kind of limbo: if he leaves to see his family, he won’t get back in. Both declare themselves impressed with McGuinness.
Down by the Spanish Arch, the water is shimmering and a group of musicians have gathered on the steps of the pier, jamming in the sunshine. Nearby, a guy juggles skittles. McGuinness gives an interview to Reuters and tells them he wants to show up the politicians who have been taking obscene salaries. He tells the Reuters man: “I want to be a beacon of hope.”
In some “cosmic” elsewhere, a 21-year-old Martin McGuinness laughs in disbelief that his older self could ever utter something so corny. But these are the sort of things they make you say when you want to be president. Today’s Martin then goes on to tell the TV man the Irish media has an agenda that includes trying to do him down.
Not long before the entourage is to head to Salthill, he is asked to give an interview by Gerard Kaye, a student at Galway Community College. The cameras are off now and they take a seat by the water, and McGuinness’s handlers are anxious to leave, but as the questions take the Derry man back to his youth – the house he grew up in, those wilder times, that world – he starts to enjoy himself.
“When I was 21 I never expected to live until I was 25,” he tells Gerard. He talks about the accomplished Gaelic football career of his brother Paul and of how they have a jersey belonging to the great Argentinian footballer Daniel Passarella in the house. Gerard is delighted by this.
“It was my first interview so it was pretty intimidating,” he confesses. “But I’m really pleased.”
In the polls, McGuinness’s marks have been promising, if not yet sensational. His night in Galway is to culminate with a United Ireland conference in Salthill. As the Sinn Féin bus heads for the seaside, Quay Street slides back into its normal Friday reverie.
