Meath and Kildare North byelections: Gerry Adams was reluctant to walk the streets of Dunboyne. The Sinn Féin leader had just arrived in the Co Meath town, just 11 miles from Dublin city centre.
Normally when a political leader is canvassing a town, he or she is expected to do a walkabout with the candidate, visiting shops and kissing babies. But Adams believes he is better employed sitting in a car and manning a loudspeaker.
"I'd be better loud-hailing," he tells his candidate, Joe Reilly, a veteran Sinn Féin councillor from Navan, as he meets him at the corner of Castleview, a small estate a few hundred yards from the town centre.
He does agree to canvass one small row of houses in the estate, and the pair, along with five helpers, set to work.
"You'd be surprised, but Gerry is quite shy; he's not a natural," says one of the Sinn Féin group.
Despite the recent largely negative coverage his party has received, Adams and Sinn Féin do not get a hostile reception at the doors.
"Well done, you held yer nerve," says one elderly woman to Adams as she shook his hand.
Within five minutes the canvass is finished as Adams greets a young couple walking a dog, and the only conversation of the canvass that lasts longer than 20 seconds ensues.
Politics or policies are not mentioned, with the exception of the mention that polling is on Friday. Instead the chat focuses on the dog, which it emerges is a stray.
Adams then pops back into the car, a Citroen Xanthia, replete with Reilly stickers and a loudspeaker, and off he goes, doing what he believes he does best during an election.
"This is Gerry Adams, asking you to vote number one Joe Reilly," he repeats in his unmistakable voice as the car takes to the streets of Dunshaughlin as Reilly and the Sinn Féin team begin the walkabout.
For the most part, people are polite but non-committal as Reilly and his supporters hand out leaflets. Indeed, they come across a number of supporters and one middle-aged woman gives the candidate an impromptu pep talk.
Other potential voters are hostile and refuse to accept leaflets.
Despite this, Reilly is in chipper form. He has been a Sinn Féin activist since the late 1980s and, while it is considered impossible for the party to win a seat in the byelection, the 6,000 votes Reilly got in the last general election gives him a definite chance at a future general election.