Voting in Mayo when polling station was in private house

By Tom Gillespie

THE 1969 general election was held on June 18. The newly elected members of the 19th Dáil assembled at Leinster House on July 2 when the new Taoiseach and government were appointed.

The result marked a third successive victory for Fianna Fáil, led by Jack Lynch.

At that time, polling stations were often held in private houses and such was the case when the polling station transferred to Matt McHale’s in Caurane, Parke, outside Castlebar, following the closure of the local national school. It was to remain there for the next 20 years.

In the Parke and Turlough magazine ‘Yesterday & Today 1911-2011’, Kate Boyle (nee McHale) wrote of the build up to polling day:

For weeks, even months, leading up to the election we all had to pitch in and help with getting the house ready. After all, this was like having stations but on a much larger scale.

Even the politicians and canvassers paid extra attention to our village. Posters were posted within yards of our house and although it was an unspoken agreement, it was known that my dad would cast a blind eye if a certain political party found its way onto the wall immediately surrounding our house. But then again, it wasn’t until the ‘90s that limitations were placed on placing posters within a certain distance of polling stations.

Some parties went to great lengths, borrowing the shoes used by the ESB workers to climb the poles and therefore able to place their posters higher and in a better vantage point than others.

A few of the posters, which were painstakingly placed with great care and attention, somehow, would mysteriously disappear overnight or more especially on voting day, engineered by youngsters full of harmless mischief in an attempt to stir a bit among the locals of different political persuasion, and it always had the desired effect.

We could hardly sleep with excitement the night before the election, similar to the excitement felt the night before going on a school tour.

Everyone was up early that morning, farm work done, etcetera. The last minute touches to the front room - the polling station - were done the night before. Donned in our best clothes, we waited eagerly for some sign of things about to happen and eventually they did.

The presiding officer arrived carrying the ballot box, met by my father, a good half-hour before voting would begin at 9 o’clock.

We crept into the hall despite my mother asking us not to get in the way and we watched in amazement through the open door to see big brown envelopes being opened, witnessed by my dad who was the polling clerk for the day.

Papers were signed, pens and papers placed, rules and regulations posted on the door. It all seemed then very official and complicated to our small minds.

The agent for both major parties took up their posts and then the first voters streamed in - the voting had begun. Periods of quiet would follow before the next voters arrived and so it continued throughout the day.

Over the years we came to know the form of people and we could almost set our watches by them. Kids we might be but over the years we became adapt at figuring out who people were voting for, or at least who we thought they were voting for; this was helped in no small way by the cars in which they arrived as both main parties had allocated locals as drivers to take people to and from the polling station if they didn’t have transport. We ran our own little tally and would exchange views with one another as to what party was getting most votes.

An elderly man once, after lengthy tuition from an overzealous canvasser, was reassuring the canvasser that he had given the appropriate party his number one and in order to prove it proceeded to take the ballot paper from his top pocket.

Mike Cunningham, one of the election agents, would always take a break but appointed a replacement before adjourning to Healy’s Hotel in Pontoon for refreshments. Not able to stay away from the excitement for too long, he would soon return, but not without the customary bar of chocolate for each of us.

We spent our day skipping to the gate to see who was arriving or in again to the kitchen as voting day was the day when neighbours and friends, once they had voted, would pop their heads in the kitchen door to say hello to Kathleen, my mam, and would be invited in for tea and chat to each other.

Not only was it a great day for us but for all the other children too as on voting day Parke school was closed and we all played outside while the parents voted and hung around afterwards to chat. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry.

We took it in turns and fought about whose turn it was to take the numerous trays of tea, sandwiches and cake to the front room. Of course, if the guard, who visited several times over the course of the day, was in the room at that time we were always a little bit more timid or apprehensive.

And so it continued throughout the day and all too quickly the day was over, and it would always end in much the same way as it had started with all the official bits to go through and various papers to be signed, but this time the guard was always present.

One other notable difference and a memory that stays with us all is when at the close of the day and voting was over the presiding officer would light the red seal wax and stamp close all the envelopes. We can still, each one of us, get the smell of that hot wax today. We showed such interest in it that invariably all officers felt obliged to leave us the wax. Little did they know that we would squabble over who got it, but it provided hours of fun afterwards stamping our initials on bits of paper.