Kenny's got the wind in his sails

Friday, 11 February 2011 14:36

Rain came down in curtains. The wind sighed and roared in the chimney pots of Tucker Street. It was hardly fit for a dog to be abroad. Yet from 6 p.m. onwards last Friday, Fine Gael party workers were yellow jacketing up at their blue fronted local election headquarters in Castlebar before heading out to solicit votes on the doorsteps.

Canvassing in such weather is a slog, grim and penitential. But when your party has a huge tail wind of support at their backs and Enda Kenny (barring a late catastrophe) looks virtually certain to become Taoiseach, there's a pep in the step. It doesn't feel a bit like punishment.
At least that's the way the Town Mayor, Ger Deere put it before murdering a mayonnaise smothered sandwich roll at his desk and disappearing on the rain lashed hustings.

In Councillor Deere's absence, however, a number of senior party personnel remained to discuss and analyse the happy circumstances which Fine Gael now find themselves in.
One opinion poll even suggests the party will come close to forming a single party government for the first time since 1927.
That would be holy grail stuff – the sort of result that Kenny workers in Castlebar and Mayo would prefer not to tempt fate by speculating about.
'Keep a cool head' is the mantra. There can be many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.

Long serving Fine Gael Senator Paddy Burke has always been extremely level headed when it comes to political forecasts yet he predicts what would be a 'fantastic' Fine Gael result in Mayo- four Fine Gael TDs and a local Taoiseach.
Never before in a Dáil constituency has four TDs been elected for the one party.
It could happen in Mayo this time, according to Senator Burke, because 'party strategists have done a great job of dividing up the constituency for the Fine Gael team of Kenny, Michael Ring, John O'Mahony and Michelle Mulherin.

"Our team is much stronger on this occasion and better balanced," Senator Burke said. "We don't want to count our chickens before they are hatched but it looks very much like Enda will be Taoiseach.
According to the Senator, the amount of enthusiasm for Enda Kenny and the party generally this time is phenomenal due to anger and concern over the economic slough the country has fallen into.
People are calling to the office in Tucker Street with offers to perform such tasks as drive, make sandwiches, put up posters.

And often right there in the thick of it are Enda's own family, his wife Fionnuala and the children.
Back in the mainstream of electioneering for Fine Gael in Castlebar this time is Kathleen Coady, widow of Enda Kenny's much loved and respected driver, Liam Coady who died suddenly last year.
A photo of a grinning Liam looks down from the walls of the election offices in Castlebar acting as a gentle encouragement to Kathleen and her colleagues
Enda phoned his former office manager last month and proposed she help out with the upcoming campaign.

With emotion in her eyes, Kathleen explained: "He (Enda) said he could not imagine me not being involved. He said that in in his own way Liam was telling him (Enda) to ring her."
Over the years since 1975 when Enda Kenny was first elected to the Dáil in the by-election which followed the death of his father, Henry, Kathleen has been associated with all of his campaigns.
"I couldn't not be here," she declared.
Kathleen says the appointment of Enda Kenny as Taoiseach would be a huge boost not alone to Castlebar but also to Mayo and the west of Ireland.
"We are very excited about it this time. But we don't want to get overly excited. We have to keep cool heads."

Another man playing an important local role on the Kenny team will be John Lohan, a native of Castlebar who is working for the campaign secretariat.
I pop the question to him. What sort of a man is End Kenny like to work for?
"Brilliant," he replied, " but I have to say he can be demanding. However, at the end of the day of the day he will always trust you with your work. As long as you get your day's work done well he's happy with it."
There's one final person for me to meet before I leave the brightly lit Fine Gael offices. It's Brendan O'Dowd, secretary of the Castlebar Fine Gael branch, and he ensares me in statistics.
It's Enda's 12th general election, Brendan says. He is 36 years in Dáil Eireann making him the longest serving TD ever from Mayo.

And after this election, Brendan insists, Kenny will set further records by becoming the first ever Taoiseach from west of the Shannon.
By now it's dusk. The lights are low. On the edge of town, political canvassers of all parties are scurrying.
Down in Linenhall Street, a painting crew is hard at work in Coady's, which is regarded as the premier Fine Gael drinking house in the county town.
It's a routine revamp, the owners tell me, nothing to do with the likely celebratory shenanigans which are just around the corner.
I believe them. Thousands wouldn't.