Kathy Sheridan: The country goes into election mode more fragile than we imagined

There was a time when an election felt like some great anarchic festival. I grew up in a political household where an early arch enemy – a mild but irritatingly persistent schoolteacher – occupied a civilised lair a few miles cross-country. Our campaign HQ, by contrast, was above a pub. On occasion, this had unfortunate consequences, such as a morning canvass where a voter opened the door a tad too eagerly and our local guiding light fell through it, flattening the voter. Instead of an outraged call to the Westmeath Examiner (the twitter of the day), the injured party dusted himself off, fetched a fairly poisonous pick-me-up from the hayshed for the visitors and himself and sent us on our merry way with five number 1s (he vowed tipsily) in the bag.

Now, let me be clear (a phrase you’ll be hearing a lot of in the next few weeks along with “a very positive reaction on the doorsteps” and “that’s not what we’re hearing on the doorsteps”), alcohol abuse was never funny. But a dreary air of impermeable political messaging and the simultaneous terror of and hunger for media coverage render campaigns into barren door-knocking. At all campaign HQs, the scorched earth of Verona Murphy’s byelection is still sending smoke signals: Do Not Stray off Message.

Resilience is a quality admired in every human type – except in politicians, where it is dismissed as brass neckery

There is one early, hopeful sign. Holding a Saturday election seems enlightened, presuming that plenty of promotion is invested in the change; the fact it’s a weekend is no guarantee that people will prioritise the vote but it removes a lot of excuses.

Playground taunts

Fianna Fáil’s Lisa Chambers also sounded a positive note on Tuesday by promising no nasty, personalised campaigning on their side. Maybe the others could have a go at that – bearing in mind that fact-checking will be a strong feature of this election. But it’s inevitable that the mine-is-bigger-than-yours playground taunts will grow louder and more infantile. At this point, a party’s primary aim is to fire up the base by putting clear blue water between itself and the others so at one level it makes sense. But it’s precisely that kind of slaggy unseriousness that makes ordinary voters slam the doors in politicians’ faces and wilfully confuse election literature with junk mail. Which is one way of savaging democracy.

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On the other hand, politics isn’t as easy as it looks.

The fact that this country emerged the saner, sounder, hugely better-informed party in the Brexit equation is no guarantee that we will remain so

Resilience is a quality admired in every human type – except in politicians, where it is dismissed as brass neckery. It’s also the only job where experience is regarded as a negative. Jonathan O’Brien’s resignation from politics got little traction in recent weeks despite the Sinn Féiner’s strong, measured Dáil performances since his election in 2011 and assured re-election. “I always said I didn’t want to be doing politics into my 50s and 60s like some career politicians,” he said, implicitly writing off anyone who has a long-term view. But he also talked about the frustration and impotence of being in eight years of opposition – a red zone all too familiar to the PDs, Labour, the Greens and the Independent Alliance who have shored up larger parties in government often for sound reasons and were devoured. That’s worth bearing in mind in the polling booth.

In important ways, we’ve been lucky with the small parties which took the risk and probably made a difference. The fact that this country emerged the saner, sounder, hugely better-informed party in the Brexit equation is no guarantee that we will remain so. Brexit demonstrated how easily a decent country can tip over into something toxic and delusional and that it didn’t happen by accident. As we discovered last week, we are far from immune.

Convolution of agendas

The surprise was not that a Royal Irish Constabulary commemoration was deemed a travesty by many. The shocker was the speed of acceleration from “Mmh . . . really?” to “Commemorate the Brit Black and Tans. F**k off vermin Brit-loving scum” (Facebook). In one sense, it is a tale of our time; a shouty hot take on social media. A convolution of agendas – f**k off Fine Gael/Thatcherism/class exploitation/partitionists – hashtag #blackandtans.

But with it flashed a memory of grinning Brexiteer Mark Francois tearing up a letter of concern from Airbus’s German chief executive. Noting the CEO had been a German paratrooper in his youth, Francois declared: “My father was a D-Day veteran, he never submitted to bullying by any German. Neither will his son.” That rampant nationalistic streak worked a treat, winning him a heftily increased majority in the December elections. Were some of our own candidates watching with interest?

The really dangerous element of the RIC debacle is that words like “nuance” and “context” were openly derided. As we go into election mode, this country is more fragile than we imagined.

Good luck to all the decent ones who dream of something better.