Vox pops rarely produce anything useful, which is hardly surprising. They mainly entail a young reporter dashing around a street or two not far from HQ with a mic to snag a few eager-to-be-helpful, unprepared members of the public with a binary question. If the latter trip over their 10 seconds of fame and blurt out something spiteful or bizarre so much the better.
Yet RTÉ’s vox pop around the Co Cavan town of Cootehill on Sunday following Heather Humphreys’s surprise retirement announcement produced something surprising in itself. Few of the respondents were aware of Humphreys’ decision so their reactions were clearly spontaneous and authentic. What resulted was quite unexpected: a succession of voices speaking about a politician in a thread of shock and regret, affection and appreciation, delivered without edge, malice or resentment.
“She’s one of the best TDs that’s ever been seen in this part of the country. She never let anyone down, that’s one thing about her. She was a brilliant TD,” said a man in a car. “Very surprised, very disappointed. Anyway good luck to Heather, we all love her here,” said a woman on the street.
“She’s a very popular woman now but my God now I am shocked – aah, a pity now”; “We’ll really feel the impact when she goes… People here don’t know the work she’s done behind the scenes…”; “She was a major asset to this area, major, especially to this town. She will be missed.”
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She was ‘exhausted’ after the June elections, her body had failed to recharge as anticipated, which had never happened to her before and was causing some concern to her family
Such is the rarity of any public affection for any politician that the sceptics among us – veterans of transparently staged canvasses and photo opportunities – find it hard to accept at face value. Politicians who still walk among us, are not bowed with age and without a declared serious illness, do not attract such unanimity of respect and affection even in their own heartland. So was it a set-up? Not unless Cootehill boasts some excellent actors. Perhaps the area is a solid mass of Fine Gaelers? It’s mixed. In the recent local elections the party trailed Fianna Fáil in area first-preferences. In the 2020 general election, the two drew roughly similar first-preferences with Sinn Féin 10 percentage points ahead of both.
Which leaves the possibility that Heather Humphreys is what she appears to be in that vox pop: a politician in a Border county, a Presbyterian and an Irish republican, who is sincerely well-liked and respected by all sides. And just as surprisingly, in a time when it’s deeply uncool to support a centrist politician, people are unabashed about saying it out loud.
Little about this era in global or national politics prepares us for a scenario where a politician near the top of the ladder simply bows out of her own accord, defying the old Enoch Powell line that all political lives end in failure. Powell of course qualified that, adding, “unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture”, though he seemed to consider it unlikely. For the vast majority of ambitious politicians, any such happy juncture must be difficult to envisage. Even retirement is no guarantee of respite. Think of Bertie Ahern entering a Dublin pub and getting hit on the head with a crutch.
For Humphreys (64) and nearing normal retirement age, that happy juncture sounds more plausible as she talks about wanting to see more of her grandchildren, family and friends. Her CV shows that she had worked in senior positions and was older than 40 with two daughters well out of babyhood by the time she entered politics. But it was clear from the emotional tone of her Sunday interview that her decision to step away was far from easy. She longed to be 10years younger because she had loved every minute of it, she said, but time catches up on us all. She would be nearly 70 by the end of the next Dáil term. The stress, strain and time away from home takes a toll, politics is intrusive and family often comes second. She was “exhausted” after the June elections, her body had failed to recharge as anticipated, which had never happened to her before and was causing some concern to her family. Politicians are human too, she said, echoing the valedictories of other politicians leaving the stage.
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Listening to a woman as strong, successful, no-nonsense and self-assured as Humphreys talk about the pressures of a politician’s life, it’s hard to square the relentless intrusive nature of it with any sense of a normal life as most of us know it, especially for a rural politician. Humphreys doesn’t agitate about the relentless social media abuse or the more aggressive environment, only because she simply ignores it, apparently.
The contrast between the tone of the Cootehill vox pop and the social media reaction to the Humphreys headline quote “Politicians are human too” proved the point. The flow of online abuse (“Politicians are not human”, “riding off into the sunset… like rats off a sinking ship”, “probably has three pensions my heart bleeds”) was predictable and almost normalised now. But much of it was also fuelled by wrong online information about her age, given as 61 (rather than 64) to anyone doing a quick google, generating a slew of resentful comments about the politician who wanted to raise the pension age while herself luxuriating in an early retirement.
Humphreys’s sanguine advice about social media – to ignore it and talk to people directly wherever you find them instead – may sound crazy to young candidates who have led their lives online. But it may also be the best free mental health advice they will ever hear. Not a bad legacy at all.