KATHY SHERIDAN on the canvass with Pat 'The Cope' Gallagher:The pace is relentless on the last-minute candidate's hit'n'run tour of the North-West
THE WOMAN is standing stock still, staring at her hand. So did she, um, “enjoy her encounter with Pat the Cope?”
"Are you SERIOUS? That. Was. An. Ambush", she spits staccato-style, as Pat the Cope's loudhailer blasts out the Saw Doctors' I wish I was on the N17to the sunny streets of Gort, Co Galway.
The Cope himself is already five doors down and the booming voice of Big Noel Treacy, one of the officer escort, rattles the hinges. Noel’s gift for hurling a quip at every human who crosses his path is tailor-made for the millisecond allocated for each human encounter. “Give my regards to Rose, I’m still mad about her”, bellows Noel at a man in a shop.
At O’Donnell’s the Butchers: “O’Donnell Abú, the finest of people”. To the coffee drinker from east Clare: “We love the Banner”. To the folk from Glenamaddy: “Up Glenamaddy! The Four Roads!”. To the hairdresser: “Where do we get the highlights out?”.
It is entirely meaningless, of course, but it spares everyone else’s energy. A mere glance at the Cope’s schedule is exhausting.
“Say a prayer for us, father”, he implores a priest, “the one thing I want to achieve in this campaign is no accidents”. This is no platitude. Starting in Gort at 3pm, how many towns and villages would you expect a canvass to cover before 8.30?
The Cope did 19. The real question is, what’s the point?
“It’s got a ripple effect . . . There’s a multiplier effect. People know I’ve been in their town and that I’ve recognised them. And I’ve got people around the town of course . . . I did largely the same in ’94 and ’99 and it worked”, he says, during a brief respite in Hugh O’Donnell’s pub, where the team scarfs down tea and rhubarb tart to a soundtrack of Big Noel’s booming commands: “Load, folks, load! Anois! Anois!”
Of course the hit ’n’ run system has certain attractions beyond the need for speed and the notorious size of the constituency. Even the most belligerent of voters are caught unawares.
They’ve been quipped and gripped before they know it. By the time they find the vent button, the lads are several parishes away.
At the Community Resource Centre, Frank Murray – a Portuguese-speaking community worker with close, proud links to the fast-diminishing Brazilian populace of Gort – wants to vent about new legislation in relation to work permits for non-EU citizens: “We’re talking about the betrayal of the people who saved this community”, he says.
Sadly, he only gets the ear of The Irish Times; the candidate has moved on. But the way the Cope sees it, there's no other way to do it. By the time he handed in his nomination papers – famously, with only minutes to spare – his rivals were weeks ahead of him on the trail. "This is a continuation of Saturday, racing from one place to another. We did 30 stops, starting at 10am and finishing at 9pm. By the time I get home tonight, I'll have covered every town and village in 10 out of 11 counties . . . I stayed out of Leitrim out of respect for Paschal", he says, lowering his voice respectfully.
The same lowered tone is reserved for the process leading up to his nomination. “I consulted with” – pregnant pause here – “ALMOST the entire parliamentary party”. A reference, we gather, to a certain Senator who has been less than forthcoming. “It was my OWN decision in the end”, he protests. “I made up my mind in 24 hours. I was fearful that with one candidate we may not retain the seat. I was very supportive of Paschal and was of the view that a north-south ticket was more favourable. But then you have to remember Ray MacSharry and Seán Flanagan who were much closer geographically and that worked okay, so the idea of balance may be just a psychological block. It hasn’t been raised much with us at the doors anyway”.
Then again, given the style of canvass, it’s hard to see how anyone would have been engaged for long enough at the doors or anywhere else to raise anything of substance. Anyway, with the benefit of hindsight, he insists that coming back to Europe is what he would have preferred all along. “I had some regrets about retiring from Europe in 2002. I saw the European project as extremely important to Ireland and I would have preferred to stay there”.
But duty called – or Bertie, as it was known at the time – and he came home to guarantee the second Dáil seat and top the poll.
The opinion polls suggest that he’s going to head the poll this time too, quite a feat for a 61-year- old who thought he was gliding into retirement up to a couple of weeks ago. Mercifully he hadn’t let himself go. “I’m feeling great. I was in bed at 2 o’clock this morning and was up and ready to go again at 7am. Ann was only turning over,” he says happily as Ann smiles back in admiration.
He puts his performance down to good health; no smoking, no drinking and the stamina of a sprinter. “I described myself as more a sprinter than marathon runner. To those who suggest I’m only a short time in the campaign”, he says meaningfully, “I would cynically suggest that maybe it’s fortunate I’m not longer in it.”
But Big Noel’s sibilant tones are calling: “Load, folks, load! NOW!” On to Hennelly’s of Labane . . .