On the canvass:If Barry's Tea heiress Deirdre Clune doesn't manage to bag the Cork South Central seat she lost in 2002, it won't be for lack of family support. It's 6.30pm on Wednesday in Rochestown and the Fine Gael candidate's stylish sister-in-law Karen is getting ready to pound the pavements. Róisín Inglewith Deirdre Clune.
Up the road, Deirdre's brother Tony is busy on the doorsteps. Her husband Conor, a dentist, is garnering support a few streets away.
Another brother, Peter, who works in England for the Typhoo tea company, has also flown over for a few days. And then her teenage son Peter, tall, dark and charming, joins the cavalry. He got a lift from Deirdre's dad who just happens to be former minister for foreign affairs Peter Barry.
After depositing Peter, grandad Barry, who will be 79 next birthday, drives off with a wave. Deirdre mentions that as chairman of Barry's Tea her father still goes down to the factory to taste the produce. "He is retired but he still wears a suit every day, I don't think he owns a sweater. Appearances are still very important to him," she says.
With her understated make-up, pale pink knee-length coat and navy trousers, mother of four Deirdre looks like a woman who knows the importance of keeping up appearances.
She is not happy, for example, that a mistake with the campaign posters left the three FG candidates in Cork South Central looking sepia toned and slightly jaundiced.
She distributes leaflets to canvassers with a reminder that they present them to voters Deirdre-side-up. "After you ask for their support for me, you can tell them about Simon Coveney and Jerry Buttimer who are on the other side," she says of her FG running-mates. After losing out on the sixth count by 41 votes last time, the former civil engineer is not taking any chances.
In this leafy Rochestown housing estate, the doors are flanked with potted topiary and matching 07 Beemers are parked in the drive. The women who answer the door in work suits or walking gear are delighted to see her. They want to talk about recycling and the lack of public transport and the traffic. "It's dreadful, Deirdre," they say.
One thing becomes clear on the doorsteps of Cork South Central - people in the constituency are ready for a change. Here's a sample of what the Yummy Mummies and the Dishy Daddies around here tell Deirdre: "Well, we won't be voting Fianna Fáil that's for sure."
"Whatever it takes to get that other crowd out that's what we'll do".
And, the phrase that comes up again and again: "I'm looking forward to a change."
One student who is voting for the first time says: "Well, I definitely won't be voting Fianna Fáil. Money just disappears down drains with that lot."
There are a couple of houses where there's a polite "we are Fianna Fáil here" or "it's Micheál Martin we are voting for, no point telling you anything else".
Until, that is, she knocks on a nurse's door. The woman is so angry she can't stop talking about how angry she is.
"I'm so cross I'm thinking of voting for Sinn Féin as a protest vote, because they are the only party who has openly said they will support us," she says.
She talks of the local maternity hospital where women in labour have been put into rooms the size of cupboards and she recounts having to take premature babies up to the geriatric wards. Deirdre listens but where other politicians might engage and reassure, Cllr Clune maintains a polite conversational distance.
"Why don't the Opposition support us?" asks the exasperated nurse. "Enda Kenny has said when he's elected he will sit down with the nurses . . ." offers Deirdre. "That's not good enough," says the woman cutting her off. "Oh, it's not you I'm angry with. It's the situation."
Virtually everyone mentions health on the doorsteps. Or they want to know whether Fine Gael would go into coalition with Sinn Féin. "We won't," says Deirdre firmly and there's relief in voters' faces. Walking between houses her son Peter tells me how sad it was the last time when mum lost her seat. "She had worked so hard," he says.
Later, I ask Deirdre why she is still in politics when she could have a much easier life. I don't exactly mention the fact that she and her five siblings stand to earn millions from the liquidation of two subsidiaries of Barry's Tea - but it's hanging there unspoken.
"I'm a grafter," she says. "I'm a worker and politics is my job, it's what I do." Is it about family honour? "I've never used the Barry name, there is no big political dynasty, even though people talk about it, there is just me," she says.
The next day she goes for a walkabout at a shopping centre in Douglas, her son follows wearing a red "Clune Number 1" football jersey. A woman who had never voted for anyone "in my entire life" says she is going to vote for Deirdre.
If change is brewing, this time around Deirdre Clune might be the voters' cup of tea.