Casting couple: Cowens turn out to boost hometown ballot
INITIAL SIGNS were not good on the road to Mucklagh National School in Offaly where Taoiseach Brian Cowen would cast his Yes vote for Lisbon yesterday.
Signs warned of a bumpy road and a slippery surface ahead. "Slow Down", another warned. But all the signs turned good when we reached Mrs McIntyre's classroom, where the main man was expected at 10am.
A large map of Europe overhung voters casting their ballot. You're the Bestwas the name of a library book lying on the table beside the polling booth. And in case all else failed, an altar was set up in the corner, with the words "Trust in God" emblazoned on the wall.
"Are we supposed to pray hard for a Yes vote?" a photographer asked poll clerk Eddie Leonard. "But who said the altar was for a Yes vote?" Leonard quipped.
The poll clerk and his presiding officer Dolores Sweeney could hardly be seen behind the barrage of photographers and reporters, waiting for the arrival of the local man.
"We're in here, Joey," Sweeney said, waving her hand in the air as a voter wandered in and baulked at the sight of the media.
"I'm all nerves," declared Leonard who, if truth be told, didn't look in the slightest bit nervous. Like the dogs on the street in Offaly, he knew that Cowen would be Taoiseach one day. "We realised that from the day he became a TD. We knew he had potential. Sure look at the massive vote he gets. He's a cool dude."
He whiled away the time with Sweeney by wondering what colour would be worn by the Taoiseach's wife Mary. "I'm going for pink," he said while she confidently opted for white. In the event, they were wrong, as she wore a cream/oatmeal ensemble. The First Couple of Offaly breezed through the door on time, hot on the heels of voters Kathleen and Ted Maxwell. "I was told we'd get tea here," Ms Maxwell said hopefully. There was no tea, but she was slightly mollified on hearing that the Taoiseach was about to arrive. "We might as well wait to see him," she said. "I'm disappointed there's no tea though."
Cowen got his voting slip and disappeared behind a booth, joking "What will I do? What will I do?" He had just left the school when a woman began removing the low-flying bunting, fearing that a gangly reporter would become entangled in it. "It's up since he became Taoiseach but I'm afraid someone will hang themselves and sue the school," she explained to a Financial Timesjournalist. "There was no danger of that with Brian Cowen but David Andrews would have been garrotted by it," said the Financial Timesman, showing an impressive knowledge of Irish politicians and their vital statistics.
The bunting still fluttered in Cowen's birthplace of Clara but that didn't stop No campaigners Libertas from erecting a massive billboard with a photo of a pitchfork. "Tell Mandelson where to stick it," the poster advised.
School photographs of a cherubic Brian Cowen were on display in his alma mater, St Francis's National School. Presiding officer John Duncan sat with three colleagues in the empty hall, waiting patiently for voters. "There's no rush at all. It's very quiet here," he said.
He too predicted a strong Yes vote from Offaly noting sagely that "you'd have to support the main man". Down the street, Lucan Racing bookmakers were offering odds on the outcome: It was 2 to 5 for a Yes win and 7 to 4 for a No. The Irish Sunadvised punters to vote No because Claire Tully, "the world's brainiest p3 girl" reckoned the EU pact was "a bad deal".
The page three girl's views didn't bother punter Kevin Fallon who predicted a victory for the Taoiseach.
He remembered bringing a young Cowen to Connemara as a boy scout in 1960. "He was a great bit of stuff even then. When you were kicking football he'd go through you." Yes indeed, the signs were looking good.