Miriam Lord: Labour stalwarts gather for first bit of good news they’ve had in years

As the morning wore on, the tallies kept getting better and better for Ivana Bacik.

But she didn’t know it.

Her campaign manager tried to reach her on the phone but couldn’t get an answer. When the final figure came in, putting the Labour candidate well ahead of her nearest rival and a near certainty to win the Dublin Bay South byelection, she remained blissfully unaware of her stunning success.

For Ivana was literally in the Dublin Bay South: swimming in the Irish Sea to calm her nerves and take her mind off the count.

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“When I heard the news, Mum and I were just out of the water at the South Wall. That’s what we decided to do in the morning when the boxes were being opened. I asked Dermot Ryan, my campaign manager, to call me when he had news.”

She didn’t expect to hear much before lunchtime, but by midday it was clear to everyone in the RDS count centre that her name was on that Dáil seat.

“When we got out – we had a lovely long swim – I checked my phone. Five missed calls. I rang Dermot and he said: ‘Where were you? I have the 100 per cent tally here. I thought you’d swum to the Isle of Man!’”

As is the custom on these occasions, the winner is usually the last candidate to arrive at an election count, when victory is not in doubt. So Senator Bacik, soon to become Deputy Bacik, didn’t arrive in the Simmonscourt complex until late on Friday evening after all the main contenders had said their piece.

After speaking to the media, one of the first things she did was seek out Lúgh and Eva Ó Braonáin, two of her biggest supporters who knocked on the doors for her during the campaign. Ivana wanted to thank them and remember their son and her comrade Cormác, the chairman of Labour Youth who died in a traffic accident in December 2019.

Unbridled delight

This quiet gesture helps to explain the very generous reaction of her political opponents to her win and the unbridled, misty-eyed delight of her Labour colleagues.

“The Labour Party family came around Ivana because we all know Ivana and we all love Ivana,” cooed her party leader, who turned out to be the biggest disappointment of the day. Covid-19 precautions notwithstanding, everyone had been nursing high hopes for a high-octane, full-throated, blood vessel-bulging victory extravaganza from Alan Kelly. How would he resist the temptation to pick her up and hoist her on willing shoulders? Or, for that matter, engineer it to have himself hoisted aloft to mark the magnificent moment?

But no, AK47 was very reserved in his comments and actions, while looking in imminent danger of exploding with happiness.

When asked if his leadership contributed to Ivana’s win, he said everyone in the party put in a huge effort. “I’m just one person,” he simpered modestly.

There were strong suspicions that headquarters slipped a sedative in his tea before letting him out.

The first leader to arrive on the scene was Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald. She was also in top form, delighted with Lynn Boylan “who has been nothing short of magnificent from start to finish in this whole campaign”.

The result proves the Government is “living on borrowed time”, said Mary Lou. “What people want now is a general election.” It’s what Mary Lou wants too.

With the party’s vote holding up on its general election performance, the happiest Shinner wasn’t the party leader but the sitting Dublin Bay South TD, Chris Andrews, one of the quietest men in the Dáil. While Lynn performed well, she didn’t put him in mortal peril by taking a second seat but proved there are still enough votes in the constituency to see him through the next election.

Lynn had done her duty. But she won’t be troubling the doorsteps of Irishtown and Ringsend next time out.

Mary Lou carolled, “2020 folks, it was not a flash in the pan,” as Chris said nothing but kept on smiling.

Facing the music

Fianna Fáil’s Jim O’Callaghan, sitting TD for the area and Director of Elections, fronted up to face the music as the afternoon wore on, the candidate hobbling next to him.

Deirdre Conroy aggravated an old injury while putting in the hard yards, but the sight of that surgical boot summed up a disastrous campaign as it lurched mercifully towards the end in the count centre.

Disappointed? Oh, everyone was disappointed, said Jim. He was disappointed, the candidate was disappointed, the support team was disappointed and he had spoken earlier in the day to the Taoiseach “and the Taoiseach is disappointed”.

He wasn’t really because he was below in Cork conveniently having his second Astra Zeneca jab and so didn’t have to make excuses for his party’s execrable performance in the byelection. They were never going to win, but Fianna Fáil was slaughtered.

As Jim spoke in the gravest of terms about his party’s future, particularly in Dublin, and what’s to be done about it and of course there is no point in speculating now about Micheál Martin’s future as leader although “we will have to think about that”, Alan Kelly and his Labour crew’s happy laughter drifted across on the air.

While Big Jim was making a valiant effort at keeping his leadership claims alive in the face of a crushing defeat for his candidate (she was the only person who put their name forward, he explained), a white car with a blue roof was slowly making its way up the approach road. It was James Geoghegan, in one of Fine Gael’s election cars which had his name plastered all over it.

Clearly he isn’t a man who is easily embarrassed, so he might make it as a TD eventually. Not this time though – a big kick in the teeth for the party.

He got out and walked towards the building, holding his wife’s hand tightly. Not a word was said as they walked past Jim O’Callaghan, still holding forth in the absence of his leader.

The vanquished Fine Gael candidate walked into the hall and was greeted with silence. Then his supporters moved over to commiserate. He saw Lynn Boylan and they touched elbows. Then he saw Chris Andrews and they did the same. The scene was very awkward.

Back outside, O’Callaghan was still talking.

“In the next general election if I get 5 per cent I lose my seat.

“This byelection is not about me,” he said, being an optimist.

“Aah, it is!” came a voice from the margins. Possibly a journalist, or maybe a giddy Labour or Shinner grassroot.

Good news

Just after 4pm the first count was announced. Labour stalwarts with well-worn Repeal T-shirts and grizzled comrades hardened by a decade of rejection gathered for the first bit of good news they’ve had in years. They cheered when Ivana’s first preference votes were called out. James Geoghegan didn’t flinch when his end was signalled and Deirdre Conroy was standing on her own, with no party figures around her, when her result was announced.

And then it was back outside for the next arrival. A barrier was placed across the approach road near the Simmonscourt entrance, leaving everyone peering down to the gate to see what was happening. And then three men materialised in the distance, coming over the horizon like horses through a heat haze in the uplands of Finglas. Leo Varadkar, Simon Harris and James Geoghegan. All wearing dark suits and light blue shirts and walking like slow motion movie cowboys after shooting up the whole town.

Except they didn’t. They rolled their shoulders and moseyed on up. All nonchalant, like.

The journalists and photographers and sundry political hangers-on burst out laughing. “Where’s the tumbleweed!” “Hey, Hey We’re the Monkees!” “I’m lookin’ for the man who shot mah paw.”

They looked utterly, utterly ridiculous. The reason for the barriers suddenly became clear – to support all those people who were falling around the place at the state of them.

It all went very well though, Leo said. We just fell short. James got the same share of votes as Eoghan Murphy and Kate O’Connell combined. He really enjoyed the campaign “a lot”. James will do them proud next time out.

James (two people combined) Geoghegan is looking forward to the next general election and becoming a TD in the future, thanks in part to “a national voice that I’ve become because of this byelection”.

And he has time now to build on his campaign in all parts of the constituency.

He’ll have them persecuted in Pearse House.

No swagger

When the dust cleared and the three bad hombres clinked their spurs into the count centre, Labour’s supporters and a Chihuahua called Diego waited for Ivana. She too walked up the road, but there was no swag about her. She was with her husband, Alan, their daughters Louie (13) and Cyan (15) and her mother, Rina.

Louie is named after Louie Bennett, Dublin suffragette, trade union official and writer, and Cyan after the colour, as her dad is a printer.

“I’m absolutely over the moon, it’s brilliant,” said Ivana, promising a “strong, progressive woman’s voice” and “a strong centre left voice” for the constituency.

It was a much needed win for the party. “I’m like a Mayo GAA fan – you wouldn’t begrudge us,” said Aodhán Ó Ríordáin.

“It’s still sinking in. I can’t quite believe it,” said Ivana.

“I can,” said her mother. “I’m so proud of her. I’m her biggest fan and she’ll be fantastic.”