KEVIN MYERS AT LARGE: Ask anyone in North Kerry why people will vote for Martin Ferris, and they will give you a Kerry answer: another question. This question is delivered with a cute smile and quizzically upraised arms: "What alternative is there?"
But he's been named in two parliaments as a member of the IRA army council! Cute smile again. "What alternative is there?" But he's a convicted gun-runner! "What alternative is there?"
But what about Sinn Féin's alleged involvement in vigilantism? Broad smile. "What alternative is there?"
North Kerry is in a frightful condition: local newspapers tell terrible stories of rape, of violence, of teenagers out of control on drugs and alcohol. That is on the one side of the equation; on the other is the bearded, burly, smiling figure of Martin Ferris, probably the new TD for North Kerry when the new Dáil meets on June 6th - as that historian and practitioner of seaborne guns can tell you, the 57th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
It's doubtful whether any election campaign in recent years has existed at two such distinctly contradictory levels. The public face of Martin Ferris is all about statesmanship, the peace process, responsible politics and the health service; the private face, the one that is talked about everywhere, is what Sinn Féin can and will do about crime, drugs, and Travellers, by what it knows best - physical force. "What alternative is there?"
People in Tralee speak of Martin Ferris's charm, his intelligence, his charisma, but most of all, they talk about his power.
The Traveller's caravan, illegally parked for months, after a single persuasive nocturnal visit is gone the next morning.
Better still, even those who have been visited by night-time callers are adamant that their visitors might have been anyone. But Sinn Féin? Never.
One victim of a vigilante squad who signed an affidavit declaring Sinn Féin had nothing to do with his abduction was asked why he was able to say that. He replied no comment: though he could equally well have given the Kerry answer; "What alternative is there?" Martin Ferris is capturing what might be called the law and order vote in Tralee; but in the hinterland, on the rocky peninsulas and mountain hamlets, he appeals to the firbolg vote, which is often called republican but which in reality is aboriginal.
The firbolgs resented the Gaels, but have finally learnt to live with them; as for the rest of the newcomers, from the Normans onwards, they can go back where they came from.
But in Tralee, for many frightened, respectable citizens, the Sinn Féin candidate is the dark side of their character which becomes mysteriously acceptable in the polling booth, a sort of Jean-Marie Le Ferris.
That, no doubt, is an improvement on what he once was, Jean-Marie Le Gun. Yet it is a poor day for democracy when the most vital question about such a man attracts only the Kerry answer.