Coalition is adopting a flash mob approach to referendum walkabouts, writes MIRIAM LORDin Limerick
THESE DAYS, the big guns like to arrive unannounced.
It’s safer that way.
No advance publicity.
That’s only asking for trouble.
In an effort to avoid heated confrontation, it seems the Government is adopting a flash mob approach to referendum walkabouts: materialise unexpectedly in a crowded place, perform the routine, leave quickly.
It cuts down on unpleasantness.
When the boss pitches up to press some flesh, handlers want him – and the cameras – to be met by just one welcoming party.
In both Limerick city and Ennis on Saturday, there was a very visible Garda presence – uniformed and plainclothes – when Enda’s Treaty Tour 2012 rolled into town.
On the lookout for anti-austerity ambushes and flying columns of Socialist Workers, presumably.
Apart from a minor incident outside Limerick’s Milk Market, the Taoiseach’s canvass was uneventful. “I don’t know why my leader, my Taoiseach, won’t go on and debate with Vincent Browne,” Nicola Martin said to him on the street.
“I have no intention of going on the Vincent Browne programme,” replied Enda, whereupon an onlooker supportively shouted “Because he’s a bully!” The Fine Gael cluster gave him a little cheer.
“Excuse me now! He’s not a bully,” Martin protested.
Enda repeated his oft-stated reason for blanking The Great Vincenzo. “I do not take instruction from a person who says ‘go into a dark room with a bottle of whiskey and a gun and take your life’.” “Hear! Hear!” shouted the cluster.
At this point, the man who had termed Browne a bully switched sides and questioned the Taoiseach’s version of events. “Word for word, that’s not what he said. It’s not exactly what he said,” he stated.
“I’m sick of the lot of you,” said Martin, turning on her heels and leaving the way clear for the man, who was only warming up.
From a calm opening question about a second bailout, he was suddenly shouting f-words about the Minister for Finance into the Taoiseach’s face.
Enda immediately ended the exchange and went back to asking the market traders about the ethnic origin of their vegetables.
Michael Noonan, as senior man in Limerick, was on hand to escort him around. Their different canvassing styles provided a lesson in ways to win and ways to lose a general election. The Taoiseach – brimming with energy, eager to engage, anxious to please and very touchy-feely; his Minister for Finance – gliding slowly along with a bemused smile, sparing with his words and not great with the touchy-feely.
Enda’s progress was punctuated by the sharp thwack of high-fives, which is how he greets anyone under the age of 16. Babies and toddlers were hoisted up for the camera-phones.
Sure who has time to talk about the fiscal compact when you can bag a photo for the mantelpiece of your child with the Taoiseach? Michael Noonan and deputy Ciarán O’Donnell stood back and let Enda do his front-of-house thing.
The Taoiseach talked at length to those who wanted to talk. Engagingly engaged. But interest in the referendum wasn’t huge. Most people were more concerned with other issues, such as Shannon airport, hospital closures and job creation schemes.
He worked the food stalls outside the Milk Market. Photographers massed at the shellfish, greedily eyeing Enda and a box of spindly spider crabs.
At the last minute, he veered towards the vegetables. He stared at the apples. “Are they Irish?” The trader explained that apples aren’t in season. So Enda pointed to the mushrooms, the spuds, to everything, asking the same question: “Are they Irish?”
He said to the woman at the cake stall: “Are your eggs Irish?” The photographers were getting desperate. “Give him a bun,” they pleaded.
But Enda was on a roll. He stopped at another display of vegetables, pouncing triumphantly on nice head of York. “Irish cabbage!” he roared.
We could hear Noonan’s wheezy laugh in the background. Canvassing his own way, quietly connecting with the locals.
Enda had a man by the neck. Both hands twisting the fabric on either side of his jacket collar, like he was trying to strangle him. But he was just saying hello.
After their provenance had been established (Wexford), a punnet of strawberries was purchased. The Taoiseach proffered a tenner and, for some strange reason, stuffed the change in deputy O’Donnell’s top pocket.
A little girl with big brown eyes was pushed forward to have her photo taken. Enda picked her up. “Ola!” he said and asked her dad where they were from. “India.”
On to the fish counter. He looked at a gurnard. “Is that Irish?”
Noonan wasn’t taking any notice. He was too busy chatting away to Celia Larkin, in from Killaloe to do her messages.
By the time he got to Ennis, Enda was over an hour late. He had stopped on the way to meet 102-year-old Timmy Ryan in Knockalough. Timmy, a lifelong Fine Gael supporter, did a full recitation of The Blacksmith for his visitor and they shared a few half-ones from the bottle Enda sent him on his 100th birthday.
It was the same drill during his brief tour along O’Connell Street – high-fiving and hoisting tots like they were the Olympic torch.
There were no protests.
Tricia Talty, wearing a Sinn Féin sticker, wasn’t interested in Vincent Browne. She wanted the Taoiseach to debate Gerry Adams. A woman selling The Socialist Worker arrived and stood quietly on the other side of the street.
It was quiet in Ennis. Fianna Fáil’s Timmy Dooley had been working the street earlier and left to go to a shopping centre.
Perhaps referendum fatigue is also setting in. “Mr [Pat] Rabbitte told me when he was here last week that there are children going hungry in Greece,” said a woman back in Limerick.
The country is crawling with Ministers.
“I’ll keep up the pace for the next two weeks,” promised Enda. Be warned. He could turn up anywhere, out of the blue, checking to see whether your turnips are Irish.