Tag: Galway

“Look at the Guard,” a mother says to her child in Irish, perhaps to impress upon him the importance of good behaviour. For we are at the crucial thirteenth count in the Galway West Dáil constituency, and this time…

They’re starting over from scratch. Again.

I have not the words to describe how boring this is. A few people are counting things. A lot more people are watching them count. That. Is. It. As if life had grown more serious in all the years since Sesame Street, but no more complicated.

There is drama here, but so deeply encoded that it’s a closed book to outsiders. Like a poem in Braille, or the heated debate dogs carry on via lamp post. There’s the Fine Gael candidate, looking tired, talking to the man who used to (almost completely fail to) teach me history in school. His brother used to be a Fine Gael TD back in the 80s. Insiders. Connolly’s cadre are the more numerous and the younger. (Unless you  count children; I think the Fine Gael people have brought more.) FG coterie generally looks better off and better dressed. Though if the guy with the huge bunch of keys dangling beneath his huger beer gut is one of theirs, he’s really letting the side down. At one corner a veritable flock of men in dark pinstripe suits. Though they are without their gowns, I’d swear in court that they’re barristers. (Not baristas thank you, spell check.) Connolly crowd not exactly badly dressed, but somehow visibly socialist. This really is the ties versus the jeans.

Glad I came in combats.

Just a quick update before I jump in the shower. Why do people say jump in the shower, anyway? It’s a foolishly dangerous idea. I prefer to lie down and gently roll into the shower. Anyway, here in Galway West everyone’s a winner. We’ve outlasted every team in the whole country to become the last still counting.

When Fidelma Healy Eames was (finally) eliminated in the middle of the night, her redistributed vote elected Brian Walsh. His surplus made no big difference, and as this left three candidates and two seats the lowest – Catherine Connolly (XLAB) – was eliminated and the other two – Noel Grealish (XPD) and Seán Kyne (FG) – deemed elected. However as Catherine Connolly was only last by 17 votes, she called for a recount.

That’s how tight it is; they’re rechecking the valid poll of well over 50,000 to make sure 17 haven’t gone missing somewhere. It’s possible.

Of course if they do find it for her, Seán Kyne would be perfectly entitled to call another recount… We may be here for a while yet.

But assuming they don’t, the last recount begins at 4:00 this afternoon. Seventeen votes, to make the difference between a Fine Gaeler and a left-wing independent in the Dáil. Seventeen votes to overturn my pessimistic prediction, and make me happy to be wrong.

I do believe I’m getting excited again.

It’s all right for you lot. Through most of the country it’s all over bar the shouting. Here in Galway though – East and West – we’re recounting, recounting, recounting.

Recounting. The word falls like the rain. Grey cloudstreamers bring down votes, one, two. One, two. One. Testing. *Blink* I should have got more sleep last night. Oh wait, rumour coming through that Galway East’s last seat will go to Labour. Hooray! Here in West, we may not know who our TDs are until tomorrow. Even the seats we thought were won, Ó Cuív and Nolan, are up for grabs again.

It was Fine Gael Senator Fidelma Healy Eames who called for the recount. Understandably, when she was on the point of being eliminated. With only 56 votes between her and the next nearest candidate, she desperately hopes that a recheck of the vote will show that it’s him who should be eliminated, not her.

The fact that this other candidate is also Fine Gael will tell you a lot of what you need to know about the Irish electoral system. We don’t have parties, we have truces.

Uneasy ones. As I was saying, TDs are in perpetual competition. The question is always asked, can they ever actually pay attention to their real job of legislating if they are constantly trying to claw votes away from one another?

Then the question has to be asked, is that actually their job? Officially they may be legislators, but once they’ve elected a Taoiseach all they ever really do is rubber-stamp the bills that the executive creates. Perhaps the TD’s real job is to be at the beck and call of the electorate, acting as go-between with the civil service.

But then you must ask, doesn’t that make the TD a sort of useless secular priest, interceding for the citizen with government in order to get them nothing more than they were entitled to anyway? And hasn’t TDs competing as professional insiders only helped create a culture of endemic corruption?

Then again… other political cultures with very different electoral systems are full of corruption too. Perhaps we have more than most, but in return for it don’t we receive a fantastic level of personal service? I invite your comment.

OK, what the ****’s happening with that count?

Recount!? Who the hell called for a recount!?! Aaaaah. Aaaaah. Aaaaah.

Sorry, my nerves are beginning to go. But assuming that a big pile of Frank Fahey Number Ones doesn’t turn up, it’s hard to see it overturning anything.

While I still think that Catherine Connolly can’t quite make it, but it’s turning out to be closer – still closer – than I expected.

Meanwhile in Galway East they’re also recounting. Hence the expression, county Galway.