Dana (Rosemary Scallon) moved her campaign into a higher gear yesterday with a robust defence of her Catholic beliefs and a strong identification with the former president, Douglas Hyde.
She chose the Douglas Hyde interpretative centre outside Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, for her first speech to a public gathering. About 70 people, alerted to her presence by the local radio station, had gathered in the little Church of Ireland church which houses the well-kept museum to hear her.
"I am very proud to be a Roman Catholic," she said. "I am not going to keep my head down. The Penal Days are over.
"People ask me do I want to take Ireland back to the Dark Ages. No. But neither will I let anyone take me back to the Dark Ages, to the Penal Days, and I would offer the same consideration to any denomination.
"Our Constitution is beautiful. It was drawn up in consultation with the head of the Church of Ireland and the Chief Rabbi. Douglas Hyde was the first president under that Constitution. He was a poet, a playwright, a Gaelic scholar. He was a Protestant. Those who nominated him wanted to show an open, tolerant community.
"We can't dress up intolerance and call it liberalism. We can't take from parents the right to be the first teachers of their children," she said, adding that she was speaking as a parent, not as a singer.
She began and ended her speech with a quotation from Douglas Hyde: " `To make the living present a rational continuation of the living past.' If we should go back to anything it should be to the values we should never have lost. We should not stamp out or destroy what is part of our culture."
Earlier in Athlone and in Roscommon she had spelled out the same message on local radio and in the housing estate she visited in Athlone town.
"The Catholic Church has been a whipping boy for every problem in this country," she told Midlands Radio 3 reporter Peter O'Connell. "I do not believe in hypocrisy. In every line of work there are some bad apples, and criminal actions must be dealt with to the fullest within the law. But this constant Catholic-bashing and Christian-bashing has gone beyond the beyond.
"How can we talk about replacing the so-called stranglehold of the church with the stranglehold of the so-called liberal agenda?"
She used her visit to the local authority housing estate, Battery Heights, to recall her own background in similar circumstances. "The lessons taught in my home, in my community, in my estate, are what made me."
In Roscommon she visited the Cherry House centre for severely handicapped young people, from pre-school children to young adults. One young woman seized her hand when she introduced herself. "Dana, Dana, Dana," she cried as the candidate stroked her head.
She discussed the patients' treatment with Dr Xavier Sardinha, a Goan doctor, and posed for photographs with patients and members of staff, before moving on to Strokestown.
There she visited the local supermarket, chatting to staff and customers, mainly children on their way home from school.
Would the butcher, to whom she had spoken for some time, be voting for her? "I don't know who I'll vote for. After meeting her I might. She's the first one in here."
People in the post office nearby were less enthusiastic. "Why did she go into all this religion crack?" asked the postmistress, Teenie. "Religion is something personal."
"Would voting for her not be a bit like putting the Pope in?" wondered Siobhan, a customer. "We've come so far in Ireland. We don't want to go back."
In the Sheepwalk Inn opposite the Douglas Hyde centre the customers were less equivocal. One customer seized her tightly by the hand: "When they were down you done it, I'll give you that."
Turning to her present ambition he said doubtfully: "You might do it. I hope you do. You've a hard struggle. If you do it, always come back to the Sheepwalk."
Then on to Ballaghaderreen, through Charlestown to Ballina, where she was attending a late traditional music session.
Strangely, she by-passed Knock, site of the reported apparition of the Virgin, and the subject of a song she has recorded. Asked why, she said: "I wouldn't like it thought I was doing it for the election."