On the day of the election, there was one video doing the rounds to much laughter. It was Gerard “The Monk” Hutch’s campaign song, posted to TikTok and Instagram, an earworm that felt AI-generated in the style of a Macklemore pop-rap tune. It was ridiculous. It was also highly shareable. When I showed it to a friend over the weekend, they said: “So much for the TikTok Taoiseach. This guy has it nailed.”
Hutch had the shock factor. His entry into the election campaign in Dublin Central was so outrageous that many struggled to grapple with it without joking about it. Foreign journalists descending on Dublin wanted to know what on earth was going on with what would become one of the stories of the election. Hutch sucked up all the oxygen. He was very close to being a TD. His candidacy is now a model: do the wildest thing, be the most unlikely of candidates, decide that the rules do not apply, and you never know what might happen.
While Hutch’s candidacy was treated with seriousness most of the time in media, there was also a wry air to some discussions - similar to the occasionally unserious reaction to the news that there was apparently a Russian asset in the Oireachtas; a serious story. Humour can be a masking mechanism, a cover for confusion or even denial. But the other reality is that Hutch gets clicks. Crime journalist Nicola Tallant’s three-part podcast with him generated over one million views on YouTube alone. There were good reports on the ground in Dublin city taking the temperature of his support.
Clearly, many voters in Dublin Central, particularly Dublin 1, feel utterly let down by mainstream politics. Hutch voters obviously do not see their interests or communities represented. Not long before the election, the Taoiseach’s taskforce for Dublin, with a large focus on Dublin 1, was launched with a panel at the event made up of middle-class men in suits. Does anyone seriously think representing an “initiative” in this way connects in town, or reflects or engages Dublin city’s diverse communities?
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One of the narratives of this election will be that it represents a rebuke to the far right and a sometimes violent, often racist protest movement and its political affiliates. Yet many far-right populist candidates ran. It’s simplistic to decide that something isn’t relevant simply because you can’t see the immediate political outcome in terms of TDs. Interestingly, speaking to politicians and canvassers out and about in Dublin Central, where I live (and I have never had more canvassers knock on the door in any election; the Green Party, People Before Profit, Sinn Féin, Clare Daly, Labour, and the Social Democrats all called) they said people weren’t as angry as they were in June during the local and European elections. Perhaps voters had got things off their chest then and were now reflecting.
But the reason Hutch was in the mix in Dublin Central was not just down to his popularity, it was because Malachy Steenson was recently elected to Dublin City Council. Steenson is a well-known anti-immigration activist in an ecosystem that runs on nihilistic rhetoric and spreading fear. Fifty-seven per cent of his transfers went to Hutch. Steenson was a precursor to Hutch’s general election performance. Hutch’s candidacy did not directly emerge from the far right, ethnonationalist and Irish authoritarian movement that has many moving parts and has been growing since 2018. But it is, in part, a manifestation of its themes of disaffection. What are we going to do about that?
The turnout in Dublin Central rose by 1 per cent, from 51.2 per cent in 2020 to 52.27 per cent in this election. This is an anomaly. Of the 12 Dublin constituencies, Dublin Central is the only Dublin constituency where turnout rose. This is significant because the drop in turnout across Dublin isn’t marginal; it fell by 5 per cent in some Dublin constituencies.
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Together, Hutch and Steenson had 4,700 first preference votes, more than Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon, and just 793 fewer than Fine Gael TD and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohue. Hutch received the fourth highest number of first preferences. He got his first preference vote out better than Labour, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party.
On RTÉ's excellent coverage over the weekend, Kerry Independent Michael Healy-Rae popped up to deliver a barnstorming political broadcast for himself. When Katie Hannon finally took the reins back and bid him good day, communications expert Terry Prone got to the core of Healy-Rae’s approach. “He is the most sophisticated user of airtime,” she said, “He uses humour in order to get under the radar so that he leaves his message with the people who matter to him, while the rest of us are sniggering.” This is bang on. Laughter is a lubricant. But while you’re laughing, someone else is listening.
All you actually have do to gain traction is break convention and be an outrageous figure. We see this unfold everywhere candidates seen as “clowns” aren’t taken seriously, while sucking up votes. Even if the media attempts to avoid grabbing the fresh meat being thrown, it’s still the story everyone wants to hear about, and the memes will still flow. Suddenly the “that couldn’t possibly happen” scenario clears its own haze and a new reality sharpens into focus. When the unlikely becomes likely, that’s a sign that something quite serious is happening. In this context, ludicrousness isn’t a failing, it’s a tactic. Politics is an attention economy. Hutch got plenty of it. So, who’s next?