Campaign Trail: European elections - Northern IrelandThree candidates from outside the party political machines are running in the North. Dan Keenan meets the Green, the Socialist and the Independent
Eamonn McCann says he hates public speaking. It's a curious claim since he seems utterly at ease and at one with himself addressing a smoke-filled room and sounding off.
Barely pausing to draw breath, he denounces the political status quo, the "culture of negativity in Northern Ireland", and, of course, "military capitalism's" war in Iraq - "the issue of our age". His voice, unplugged, could fill a stadium, it seems. His crescendo speech is littered with colourful phrases - "knuckle-dragging druggies" being an example.
Clenched fists, finger stabbing and Larkin-style arm-raising accompany the sharp wit, the rhetorical questions and the one-liners.
Here in South Down, he is more than 100 miles away from his Derry heartland, but the small local audience - perhaps 50 - are already converts.
Afterwards, chatting privately, he seems the altogether shyer man he probably really is. This is not an election rally, he says; it's a campaign to build an alternative to the political forces prevailing in Northern Ireland.
Of course he wants a respectable vote next week. But this campaign is about signing up members to his Socialist Environmental Alliance, "a bloody mouthful of a name", and pressing home his core belief that the people of beautiful but blighted Northern Ireland can begin to see themselves in terms other than Protestant and Catholic.
"I don't ignore the sectarian problem," he says. "I want to provide the solution to it. The way to ease conflict is to ease the poorest in society off the bottom. Or better, to empower them to lift themselves up."
The contrast with the Green candidate could not be more complete. Lindsay Whitcroft found herself at the sharp edge of the Green campaign the same week she finished her final exams for business degree. The party's first choice withdrew following an injury during a Gaelic football match.
The 32-year old mother of three admits she's new to all this. "It's a steep learning curve," she says, but it's clear she's warming to the task. Not a natural platform speaker, nor a meet-the-people smooth operator, she now mingles easily with Belfast shoppers. Many appear to like her non-politician style of politics and grant her some time and take her election hand-out.
She's good in such one-on-one situations and adapts naturally from character to character. She has an appropriate word for the elderly and is comfortable with those younger then her. "Good luck with that," she tells a pregnant woman pointing at her prominent bump. She gets a laugh.
Like McCann, she likes to pitch her campaign on a wider scale. This is not just about Northern Ireland or what it can get from Brussels.
Hers is "the politics of quality of life", she says. "I want vital public services maintained and I want votes for a new generation of politics." The Green party literature describes the battle between the nationalist parties as "Sinn Féin versus Sinn Féin lite" while for them, the UUP grudge match against the DUP is "big house versus big mouth unionism".
She insists the Belfast Agreement can do for the North what the EU is doing for post-war Europe. She opposes the war in Iraq and sees military policy and environmental policy as being interconnected. "Renewable energy has as much to do with international peace as it does with managing scarce resources."
There is no hiding the fact that these are early days for Green politics in Northern Ireland but with just one elected representative on local councils the only way is up. Second preferences are entirely welcome from those unwilling to move away from the established parties.
Such a move would scarcely satisfy John Gilliland - the most independent of independents. Animated, focused and very determined, his is an acutely political campaign - despite his slogan "No politics, just action".
What he really means is "No politicking". His approach is one of political pragmatism mixed in with impatience with the status quo and a vivacious can-do approach to life.
He looks older than his 38 years and his packed CV would not disgrace a man twice his age. The youngest-ever president of the Ulster Farmers' Union, he completed his two-year term last month having negotiated for Ulster's good Protestant stock in Brussels and worked closely with the SDLP's Bríd Rodgers when she was agriculture minister during the foot-and-mouth crisis.
Educated both in his native Derry as well as in Dublin and Edinburgh, he is an Anglican married to a Catholic. A father of four, he heads up a renewable energy willow tree farm in Derry.
Backed by Alliance and the Workers Party, he is the clear winner of the poster war across Northern Ireland - not that he will settle for that. He really wants a seat in the European Parliament and believes he can just about shade it.
"I'm fed up with old-style politics and the bickering," he says with frustration. "I come with no baggage. I'm a unifying candidate and I'm different." This is not a Border poll nor is it a new referendum on the Belfast Agreement, but it has everything to do with sending an effective representative to Europe, he believes. Addressing a packed meeting organised by Women in Politics, he is one of three men in the hall. Martin Morgan, the SDLP candidate joins him on the platform. His speech is a tirade about missed opportunities and squandered money. The Republic shows how EU relations should be conducted while the North struggles to catch up. But it's not just about cash.
"The EU can consolidate peace," he tells his audience. "It's good for families and for women, who need a special emphasis to help win equality." He leaves early, already late for his next breathless appointment, just as he was late for this.
If passion counted instead of first preferences, he'd top the poll.