Results in the western county will depend on whether general disenchantment with politics translates into apathy or anger
LUKE “MING” Flanagan has launched a political career from a zone in the Irish psyche that doesn’t normally engage with the official political dimension.
He is youngish (39), radical in a non-ideological way and instantly recognisable as rock’n’roll.
Put out of your mind the coverage of the “cannabis candidate”, by far the least interesting thing about him.
He is a distant relative of Fr Michael O’Flanagan, who recited the invocation at the inaugural meeting of the Dáil in January 1919, and persistently reminds people of the republican priest.
If elected, he will be the first TD from Castlerea since Dan O’Rourke, one-time freedom fighter, Sinn Féin member of the second Dáil and later Fianna Fáil TD, who finally lost his seat in 1951. On the face of it, Ming seems like an utterly different type of Irishmen.
And yet, the present crisis is analogous, surely, to the difficulties faced by this State in its earliest days before the advent of a political class, when the salvation of the nation became a matter for ordinary men and women.
Once again, just possibly, we may be at the beginning of something new, when the unlikeliest of people may again be called upon to lead. Inevitably, the leadership that would emerge at such a moment would look different from the staid, conservative figures of the early years of Independence and they don’t come much more different-looking than Ming.
He has been sniffing around the edges of the political ring since 1997, when he first ran as an Independent in Galway West.
He has since gained much experience, in European, Dáil and council elections and serves as mayor of Roscommon. And yet he retains the aura of a newcomer, of someone who has emerged from his own time, generation, community and place.
On a Wednesday night in the Stagger Inn, Castlerea, Ming launches his election campaign with a 90-minute speech.
He speaks about the necessity to renegotiate the bailout, about what he calls the sell-out of Irish natural resources, about the resumption of emigration, about the threatened downgrading of Roscommon hospital, about ghost estates, about agri-tourism and the need to recommence cultivating the land, about brewing local stout and beer.
He talks about his efforts to defeat the ban on turf-cutting and the urgency of upgrading broadband in the west. He speaks seamlessly, without notes, standing alone on the stage, having been perfunctorily introduced by the proprietor’s son.
Although his delivery borders on the earnest, his look is closer to Tommy Tiernan than Éamon Ó Cuív. He wears a stripey, buttoned-up shirt.
His hair is tied in a short ponytail, which, with his trademark beard, announces him as someone who has approached politics on his own terms.
There is a surprising element of shyness about him as, for the first hour or so, he mainly avoids eye contact with the audience, speaking to the microphone in the style of a sean nós singer.
But his song is strong and engaging. Ming’s politics are rooted in a deep affection for his home place: radical but not recognisably left or right – being rooted instead in that commonsensical radicalism that has made Roscommon such an unpredictable political territory.
He has lived all over Europe, but speaks of Castlerea with pride and affection. He has a sure-footed sense of tribal politics, inherited from his father, a Fianna Fáiler, and his late mother, a devotee of Garret FitzGerald. He knows how to speak to such allegiances and coax them towards himself.
His delivery borders by turns on mockery and a controlled anger, as he describes the decimation and betrayal of a region and a country.
He is funny in a self-deprecating way, pitting himself always against an ironic depiction of the implacable smugness of power. He tells of his visit to Dáil Éireann to discuss the turf-cutting issue with a committee of worthies.
First, he says, he was barred from entering because he wasn’t wearing a tie. This difficulty resolved, “I thought I’d leave with my face covered in lipstick and my collarbone broken from hugs.”
The ban on turf-cutting is a big issue here, one of those unexpected curveballs that enter into general elections at a local level, fail to read on the national radar and leave the pundits scrambling to catch up.
As he warms up, he becomes less introverted, scanning the crowd for affirmation. His rapid-fire delivery is punctuated by rhetorical questions, including his Obamaesque mantra: “Can we do it? We have no choice!” Twice, he quotes Fr Michael O’Flanagan: “We have been lied to for too long, and we have been quiet for too long!”
The crowd of about 200 people sits through the 90 minutes without as much as a sigh, with just the occasional devotee tip-toeing out for another pint or a leak. But there is an odd feeling, as though we are witnessing a piece of entertainment rather than a political occasion.
The audience claps and cheers when he presses the right buttons, but there is no sense of a grassroots surge intent upon sweeping their man to power in Dublin. The mood chimes with a more general sense of foreboding, fragility and fear that seem to underlie this election, the oddest of my lifetime.
Out on the street, enough people talk about Ming to suggest he has a real chance of the third seat. It all depends on whether the disenchantment translates as apathy or anger. On the other hand, almost everyone seems to assume that other people, especially “the youth”, will vote for him. Ming says he is loved by “the very young and the very old”, which means there is still some middle ground to be won over.
In canvassing terms too, it is the oddest Irish election ever. On the surface it follows the usual set-piece patterns, but deeper down there is this strangeness.
Normally, an election is accompanied by a sense of carnival, a sporting mood expressing itself in the bantering and good-humoured bickering directed at the candidates.
But there is a noticeable reticence in people this time, particularly younger people, a kind of rigid reluctance to be wooed by the big beasts.
Older people tend to join in the craic with candidates of all parties and none. But the younger ones seem to be clutching some tightly held sentiment in their fists, to be released perhaps, on Friday. This makes it next to impossible to anticipate much about the outcome in this most unpredictable of constituencies, which once again offers itself as a microcosm and an emblem of the whole.
In a shop in Roscommon town on Friday morning, Fine Gael TD Denis Naughton asks a young woman for her vote. She tells him she’s from Longford, the neighbouring constituency, and he immediately rhymes off the names of the Fine Gael candidates there.
“I dunno who they are,” she answers, good humouredly but with no intimation of interest.
Denis moves on. In the O2 shop, four young women pause frozen-lipped and avoiding eye contact, until he gets the message, puts down his leaflet and leaves. Naughten is generally well received, but, despite his relative youth (a year younger than Ming), nearly always by older people. His seat appears safe, although he hates people saying that, because he nearly lost out in 2007.
With just one running mate, Frank Feighan from Boyle at the other end of the constituency, he can’t afford to wait for number twos. Feighan is also said to be safe, although he is given to repeating that you can never write off Fianna Fáil.
Fianna Fáilers are not so sure, with many insiders believing that the party has shot itself in both feet by pursuing a two-candidate strategy when there is at best a quota to be scraped together across a constituency that will divide along county and party lines.
In the north is Gerry Kilrane from Mohill, Co Leitrim, expected to do reasonably well in his own area but less so in Roscommon. In the south, Ivan Connaughton from Athleague is a first-time contender and therefore relatively uncontaminated by the party brand, but few observers will say more than that he has a bright future.
Both FF candidates appear more likely to transfer to Sinn Féin (Kilrane) and Independents (Connaughton) than to each other.
Roscommon-South Leitrim is a relatively new constituency, but it equates, more or less, to a part of the country that has presented some unexpected results in the past. Around here was once the electoral stronghold of the great Jack McQuillan, long-time sidekick of the iconic left-winger Noel Browne.
Roscommon also provided one of the biggest shocks of the 1989 election, when the hospital candidate, Tom Foxe, unseated the former minister for justice, Seán Doherty. This time, the constituency is rendered even more unpredictable by the chopping and changing of constituency boundaries, which have shifted again since 2007 with the loss of some 3,000 Leitrim votes. The expectation, when all the caveats have been entered, is that Fine Gael will take two seats, with the third giving rise to a close contest between the Labour Party, Sinn Féin and Ming.
The Labour candidate, John Kelly, might have been favourite to take the third seat, but his star seems to have declined since his impressive showing as an Independent in 2007. Kelly appears to have received no added value from joining the Labour Party, a weak brand in this part of the country (as Jack McQuillan discovered when, having joined the party in 1963, he lost his seat at the next election).
He also appears to have alienated himself from powerful local forces, like the turf-cutters and the Hospital Action Committee, which is again running its own candidate. He says he joined the Labour Party to be able to do things in power on behalf of his constituents, but the expected tide has failed to materialise and there is a feeling that his moment has passed.
The hospital candidate, John McDermott, a former Roscommon county footballer, is a highly personable man, but perhaps too reserved for the political dogfight.
If, as expected, he is eliminated early, his transfers will be crucial, with Ming likely to be the main beneficiary. The Green Party candidate, Garreth McDaid, is expected to go out early, his votes probably also favouring Ming. There is one other Independent, Seán Kearns, a businessman, but he is not expected to survive the early counting.
If there is a Flash Gordon to worry Ming, it will probably be the Sinn Féiner, Martin Kenny.
He polled nearly 4,000 first preferences in 2007 and, although he has lost a chunk of these to the redrawn boundary, seems to be making good headway. He’s an impressive candidate, articulate and engaging, possessed of excellent communication skills. He has the cut and skill set of a politician with a bright future.
The question is: is looking like a politician going to count for much in the immediate future of Irish politics? You decide.