ON THE CANVASS: RESOLUTELY UNMOVED by the sight of the entourage sweeping towards her, the 30-something in a velour tracksuit holds her waxen stare, crosses her arms, and braces herself.
“We’re just doing a bit of canvassing on the Lisbon Treaty,” says Mary Lou McDonald a little uncertainly. There’s no need, it turns out. “Dirty swines, they are,” the woman breaks in. “Think they can make us change our minds.”
Lunchtime shoppers and office workers are bounding along Dublin’s Henry Street, the sun at their backs and the sound of a busker’s sax leaving Sinatra tunes in their ears. “Very mellow, isn’t it,” says the politician universally known just as Mary Lou. “I know you off the telly,” an older woman confides after crossing the street to meet her. “You’re Mary Lou.”
As a general rule, most of those who stop to talk have already decided to vote No, but many others pass by with no more than a glance, a shake of the head or a sideward veer. One man in his 40s promises his vote but says his elderly father is nervous about his pension this time round – one of several admissions of a shift to the Yes side. “The real danger to pensions will be in the budget this December, never mind the Lisbon Treaty,” Mary Lou tells him.
Even a 45-minute walkabout gives ample time for people’s anxieties to surface. Janice Mates, a quietly spoken middle-aged woman out with a friend, says she has “more or less” made up her mind.
“It’s the same treaty as last time,” says the politician. “There have been some changes,” Janice replies evenly. “We get to keep our commissioner.”
Mary Lou tells her the right to a permanent commissioner should have been inserted into the treaty – “instead, all we got was a decision”.
“I thought they were legally binding,” Janice keeps up, but then checks herself, in case she might seem rude. “Don’t get me wrong. I voted No the last time, you know. The commissioner was the main reason.” She resents that Irish people are the only Europeans with a vote on Lisbon, but “to be honest with you, I don’t think we can afford to vote No again. We can’t go it alone.”
She works in the publishing trade, she explains, and complains that too many Irish companies are opting to do their printing outside the country. She worries if she’ll still have a job by Christmas.
The RTÉ Guideisn't printed in the State, she claims, "and neither are Sinn Féin's leaflets". Mary Lou and company gaze sheepishly at the Dundonald address on their literature, but resist the temptation to chide the woman for partitionist thinking. "There's 20,000 people depending on the printing trade here," Janice adds, "and I'm one of them."
It’s striking to see that nearly all the people McDonald approaches are women. Has it got anything to do with the fact that women were more likely to vote No the last time round? “Maybe it’s just an instinctive thing,” she suggests. “You’re attributing to me more cunning than I possess.”
Then we approach a few men. The first just picks up speed, and another mutters under his breath (“Oh, no. That s****”) before hurrying past. “I don’t think men are as engaged in the democratic process as women,” Mary Lou murmurs to a colleague.
But then they find a fan. “It’s a load of rubbish,” he declares. “They’re whipping up fear among people who have enough to worry about,” Mary Lou says of the Yes campaign. He wishes her well, but he doesn’t think Declan Ganley will help the cause, “unfortunately for you guys”.
A Polish journalist who is tagging along remarks on how curious it is to find so much lightly worn knowledge about the treaty among people on the street.
On Moore Street, where the street vendors greet Mary Lou like a sister (“Hello, lovely girl,” yells May Gorman from her fish stand. “No vote? Defin-eye-tely!”), stall-owner Marie Cullen says she has read up on the treaty and remains implacably opposed.
She speaks at length on her reservations about Ireland’s voting strength at the Council of Ministers and wonders whether the promise of a permanent Irish commissioner will hold.
“I don’t want my kids fighting against some other country in years to come down the road,” she goes on. “They’re talking about these legal guarantees. I don’t believe them. Look at the state we’re in now. I don’t believe our Government. Our Taoiseach was the finance minister at the time. He knew what was going on. He knew the state we were going to have our country in.”
Further along the stalls, another vendor delights in the recognition of a familiar face. “Ah, Mary Lou. Ye heard about me uncle, did ye?”
