Poetry in the Aras

By AM Sunday, October 30, 2011

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It’s official. Michael D Higgins, poet and human rights activist, is the 9th President of Ireland. Being small in stature did not prevent him standing head and shoulders above the rest of the field. In terms of how the public appear to understand the office of President it is a role that would seem to fit Higgins like a glove. He knew the ropes better than the rest of them, what was feasible and what was off limits.

There were really only two candidates in it as the final vote tally demonstrated. The remaining five were also rans who trailed far behind the top two. One serious issue for society to reflect upon is that the two women candidates polled lower than their male rivals, placing both in the bottom two. After 21 years of a female presidency it is as if the men have returned with a vengeance taking 94 per cent of the vote between them. Not a propitious outcome.

What looked like Mount Impossible for Higgins just a week ago was quickly scaled. Sean Gallagher, who previously perched on the uppermost peak, holding an almost unassailable lead in opinion polls, stepped over the edge and toppled. Television presenter Ursula Halligan, who always tries to effect presidential airs herself, put it down to the ‘ambush’ by Martin McGuinness in front of 700, 000 viewers. It led Gallagher to ‘prevaricate, wriggle and change his story several times.’

It was indeed McGuinness with what at the time seemed a well placed shot from a Sinn Fein Barrett light 50. Its effect was every bit as deadly as that in play during the ‘sniper at work’ days In South Armagh. Then British soldiers would fall with fatal regularity, drilled by the Barrett. On this occasion, Sean Gallagher rather than Danny Blinco took the hit.

On reflection it is a moot point if the actual aim of Martin McGuinness was precision tuned or whether the field craft of Sean Gallagher was woeful. It has since emerged that McGuinness had not mastered the detail behind his charge and might have fired a salvo more in hope than expectation. Gallagher had a full week to prepare his defences, having known that the Dodgy Diesel man was lying in wait in a culvert ready to belt feed McGuinness the moment the target came into site. On the Front Line killing zone all he could manage to take cover behind was an envelope. McGuinness surely had a point during Friday evening’s television coverage when he said that his question was less damning than the answer given.

How Sean Gallagher failed to come up with a plausible account is the one imponderable from the presidential campaign. Trapped like a rabbit in the headlights, he mumbled and muttered about envelopes, the colour of which could only have been brown. It was an amazing downturn in fortunes for the de facto Fianna Fail man.

There was nothing like it for drama. The last time the viewing public had something similar to feast on was when Michael McDowell chewed up and spat out Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams during the 2007 general election campaign.

Whatever the circumstances that saw Sean Gallagher done for, the fact that it was the catalyst for a game changing voter swing must beg the question of why it went to Higgins rather than accrue to the man who scored the winner.  It was always remotely possible that Martin McGuinness could have won the presidency but it was never a likely outcome.  Too much baggage, too likely to bring opprobrium to the office of President in the international arena. And yet we are compelled to wonder what could have happened had Sinn Fein ran a less voter repellent candidate, one not indistinguishable from decades of IRA armed force and eager to dissemble about it at each step of the way. The climate was ripe for a serious debate on the national stage. There was a public appetite for grave questions to be asked of the establishment way of doing things. Martin McGuinness was not the person to do it. He was too busy deflecting questions to be able to ask any. A different Sinn Fein candidate could have broken through.  An opportunity lost probably due to the power lust at leadership level which has so bedevilled the party and suffocated all radical potential.

The observer is left to conclude that in spite of the spin put on the result by Sinn Fein, in the round as Mark McGregor argues with some interesting statistics this was not an impressive election for Sinn Fein. For sure, and crucially, it succeeded in preventing Fianna Fail getting a foot in the Aras door by ensuring the collapse of Sean Gallagher. But Gallagher still managed to outpoll McGuinness by two to one.

For this to have been a truly successful outing by Sinn Fein McGuinness would needed to have been runner up or taken 20 per cent of the vote. His total count at under 14 per cent put him closer to the real losers and a considerable way off the leaders. And to compound the sense of underachievement, in the Dublin West by election held the same day the Fianna Fail candidate polled between two to three times the Sinn Fein total.

Fianna Fail, they haven’t gone away you know. This weeks results have shown the Soldiers move successfully to ward off the challenge from the pretenders to their throne,  Provisional Fianna Fail.