First nurse for the Aras woos sunny Limerick city

For one brief, shining moment, the candidate held the tall, pointed witch's hat in her hand. The cameramen's hearts skipped a beat. "Go on, Mary, put it on." She twirled it uncertainly. "Ah, no . . ." she said finally, wisely, returning it firmly to the shelf and picking up a pumpkin instead.

"Is that not witchism?" demanded a disgruntled reporter. And the detachment from fans and filthy stuff with which Mary Banotti has distinguished herself in recent days sprang to the fore.

"I think witches have their place . . .", she grinned in conciliatory fashion.

She spent yesterday morning hurtling through a sunny Limerick city, moving at the speed of light, whisked along by Michael Noonan, John Cushnahan MEP and Senator Mary Jackman, FG's probable standard-bearer in the forthcoming by-election.

A fair percentage of middle Limerick swarmed to meet her while the rest seemed to be sprinting along in her wake, their morning crowned by Gerard Hannan of Browsers' bookshop, who hauled her inside to present her with a copy of Ashes, his new book. "Not just any book", elaborated an FG activist though gritted teeth, "but this city's reaction to Angela's Ashes. Ger's book is about the real Limerick. We're now beginning to stand up for ourselves."

Political veteran Tom O'Donnell suddenly appeared - his wife Frances and 10-month-old son elsewhere in the retinue - enveloping her in the biggest bearhug of the campaign. A Garda superintendent just happened to be standing on a street corner, to greet her warmly. On the busy street drivers braked and lowered their windows to talk, causing the candidate to slalom on and off the footpath with alarming suddenness.

Earlier at a press conference held in the charming little lecture theatre of the inner-city Presentation Convent, she swatted away the familiar questions with the now familiar strategy of semi-detachment from her party leader.

Haven't John Bruton's statements in themselves damaged the prospects for reconciliation in the North?

"John Bruton as the leader of one political party responded to the leader of another political party. My focus has been on my own campaign."

Does she consider the McAleese controversy closed?

"I'm satisfied that she also wants to get on with her own campaign."

Did she think that her campaign might have benefited from Ms McAleese's difficulties?

"My ratings were already beginning to rise spectacularly before any of that began."

There was only a week to go to the election; was she any closer to an election pact with, say, Adi Roche?

"No, no closer. I think it would be invidious to ask people to enter into a pact."

She left the convent with the seductive title, President-elect, ringing in her ears, uttered not by a party spinner but by a venerable nun and principal, Sister Angela Leahy. Ms Banotti had come bearing gifts, "a totally free pencil for every member of the audience", and a general request in the staff room to give everyone a half-day without any homework.

The latter was greeted with squeals of delight (from the teachers, naturally), with a few doubting creatures spluttering excitedly: "Did she mean it? Did she mean it?"

She got her reward in the form of a spontaneous round of applause from a sort of student guard of honour as she left for the Regional Hospital. Under the benevolent eye of the country's youngest matron of a large hospital, Nora Fitzpatrick (37), she paid tribute to the professionalism of the nurses and shook hands with dozens of them. Her message could not have been more positive.

"I hope to be the first nurse to be elected to the Aras," she declared, to universal beams.