Crowley proves the acceptable face of Fianna Fáil as Kelly gets set for a new ball game, and Ferris heads home
ON THE way to the Neptune Arena, my taxi driver asked a question that may be on many people’s lips concerning Ireland’s newest MEP. “Alan Who?” he said. But for Labour’s Alan Kelly, overnight success came at the end of an epic campaign that began a full year ago when he won the party’s nomination from a man with one of the party’s more famous names, Arthur Spring.
The 33-year-old Senator has built his political career on secure foundations, coming as he does from the north Tipperary village of Portroe, where a history of slate quarrying created a rare Labour stronghold in those parts. Yet as late as Saturday night’s exit polls, he still looked to have no chance of landing a seat.
In the event he polled more than 64,000 votes: Labour’s best performance in Munster since they last won here with Eileen Desmond in 1979. He was further boosted by unexpectedly large transfers from Fine Gael and the Greens. And when Sinn Féin’s Toireasa Ferris was eliminated, he was too far in front to be caught by the outgoing Independent, Kathy Sinnott, whose defeat marked the end of an era for non-party MEPs in Munster.
Fewer than 700 votes behind Sinnott, Ferris’s supporters would have been within their rights to call a recount. But to the relief of everyone in the count centre, they declined to do so – their magnanimity influenced by the possibility that Sinnott, their second favourite candidate, would still win. It proved a forlorn hope.
To hear Toireasa Ferris tell it, she had a lucky escape in not being elected MEP. The winsome Sinn Féin candidate turned up at tea-time to acknowledge elimination, with her 14-month-old daughter Liadain in her arms. The baby had been “totally neglected by her mammy” during the campaign, she said. And Ms Ferris’s partner Pa had only agreed to deputise for her on the grounds that “there was no danger of me winning”.
When instead the prospect of success loomed on Sunday night, Pa had been “panicking”. But now that she had been eliminated, added Liadain’s mother, “at least we can go home”.
As the Sinn Féin candidate continued to protest that she had no ambitions for a political career, you could half believe that hers had been a crisis candidacy and that if she had delivered a European Parliament seat, it would have had to be put up for adoption. And yet. She has been such a slick campaigner that it is impossible to believe the party will allow her to concentrate exclusively on motherhood.
There was only one slightly sour moment amid Sinn Féin’s sweetness and light. Early in the day an unidentified man in the count hall made certain suggestions to the candidate’s father, suggesting a link between Sinn Féin’s campaigns and the former fundraising activities of the IRA. There followed a verbal altercation and gardaí stepped in to restore calm. But Mr Ferris played down the incident afterwards, refusing to describe it even as a “fracas”.
Elected yet again in first place yesterday, Fianna Fáil’s greatest vote-getter Brian Crowley sounded a note of humility, insisting he had not escaped his party’s current unpopularity. In fact his vote was a mere 2.5 per cent down on last time, and his protestations were like those of a house-proud woman who spends weeks tidying the place up for visitors and then apologises for the state of it.
On a weekend when even Bertie Ahern’s legendary vote machine blew a gasket, Crowley still hoovered up a massive 118,000 number ones. Now more than ever, he is the acceptable face of Fianna Fáil; and yet, somehow he can still carry off charming modesty. “It’s not a machine,” he corrected a reporter’s description of his vote-gathering operation. “It’s people.”
The second seat in Ireland South went to Fine Gael’s Seán Kelly, the former GAA president who oversaw the amendment of Rule 42. In keeping with this era of Irish sporting ecumenism he helped unleash, his triumph occurred in a basketball stadium, from which he was chaired by Fine Gaelers as a beaming Enda Kenny looked on. But the European Parliament would be another new ball game, he conceded. “I’m meeting Simon Coveney during the week to talk about it”.