The grinding poverty experienced by young Jackie Healy-Rae on a mountain holding spawned a family work ethic which has yielded a remarkable general election scenario.
A TG4 poll suggests outgoing TD Michael Healy-Rae and his brother, Cllr Danny, might well take two of the five seats in the Kerry constituency. If it happens, it will be due to the kind of doggedness their father showed in ensuring basic survival decades ago and in later building up a business and political career.
The Healy-Rae machine is spearheaded by Michael, Danny and the latter’s son, Johnny, also a councillor. They are workaholics, focused on politics and the family businesses, and are backed up by extended family and committed activists.
It is the inheritance of the family patriarch, Jackie, who died in December 2014. He was TD for Kerry South from 1997 until 2011, when he was replaced by Michael.
"It all started from nothing,'' writes Donal Hickey in his 2015 book, The Healy-Raes, A Twenty-Four Seven Political Legacy.
Hickey’s narrative tells the story of a rise from the poverty of the new State to business and political success latterly.
Jackie was born into a 65-acre farm, which included bogs, two miles from Kilgarvan in the shadow of Mangerton mountain, in 1931. As an old man, he told of how the family would have "starved'' but for the generosity of a local shopkeeper, Mrs Quill. "Most people were poor; very poor by today's standards,'' writes Hickey. "It was much worse than what has become regarded as austerity in 21st century Ireland. ''
When Jackie was eight, his father, Danny, damaged a disc in his back while tipping up a horse-load of manure for the garden. His condition worsened and he spent the remaining 24 years of his life as an invalid. With six children to rear, times became very tough.
Jackie would later make a wheelchair for his father with two bicycle wheels and a pram wheel, an axle and the seat of a chair, with rests for his elbows.
In old age, Jackie recalled to Hickey that he never forgot a time in 1947 when his mother, Mary, had no money to buy flour. Mrs Quill came to the rescue, sending a 10-stone sack to a crossroads where it was collected by Jackie’s mother.
Exhausted
She then brought it on her back to the house across the bog and fields. “Exhausted, she landed the heavy sack on a seat in the kitchen,’’ writes Hickey. “Not a single grain of that flour was wasted.’’
Jackie left school at 13. As a young man, he spent some time in the US before returning home to become involved in the plant hire, farming and pub games.
He joined Fianna Fáil and learned electioneering as part of the Neil Blaney-led byelection campaigns in the 1960s. He later left the party, having failed to secure a Dáil nomination, and won a seat as an Independent in Kerry South.
By then, Michael and Danny were an integral part of his businesses and political organisation. His sons inherited his work rate and determination.
I knew him for many years and only once saw him display any emotion. We were having tea in Killarney after I interviewed him while he was an Independent TD supporting the then minority Fianna Fáil government. He was visibly moved when he mentioned his parents and faltered for what seemed like a long minute. The ebullience returned when we returned to talking politics.
The memories ran deep. “I came down Mangerton mountain with my mother in a donkey and cart,’’ he once told his son, Danny. “The worst that can happen is that I go back up the mountain in a donkey and cart.’’
Michael and Danny are cast in the same mould. Michael wears the trademark cap and plays to the caricature of the rural TD when it is to his advantage. And, like his father, he is a master of the soundbite.
"Ballinskelligs is as important as Blackrock," he said on RTÉ's The Late Late Show, in response to urban critics.
Behind the façade, the two are formidable politicians. They have modernised their father’s electioneering methods, recognising times have changed. They are ruthless when defending their patch and well able to match the viciousness which sometimes surfaces in this most political of counties.
This, too, is part of their inheritance. During the 2002 election Jackie was angry about a national newspaper article lampooning him as a country bumpkin.
When it was pointed out that the article was unlikely to be read in his heartland, he replied that Fianna Fáil had handed out copies on the doorsteps. Fianna Fáil knew the Healy-Raes would have been capable of such tactics if roles were reversed.
A vacuum
Winning two seats in a five-seater will be a challenge, despite Danny’s poll topping 4,388 votes in the 2014 local election in the Killarney area.
A vacuum was created in Killarney when Independent TD Tom Fleming unexpectedly bowed out. While the TG4 poll showed Michael with 33 per cent, more than twice the quota, and Danny on 4 per cent, local observers say much could change before polling day.
The Kerry constituency will be hard-fought, with five outgoing TDs – Michael, Fine Gael's Jimmy Deenihan and Brendan Griffin, Sinn Féin's Martin Ferris, and Labour's Arthur Spring. There is also a strong challenge from Fianna Fáil candidates John Brassil and Norma Moriarty.
The two Healy-Raes have carved up the constituency and nothing can be ruled in or out. The Mangerton mountain legacy may deepen.
