Last week, a Kerryman poll indicated that Martin Ferris will take
a seat in Kerry North at Fianna Fáil's expense. Ferris is
understandably reluctant to put too much faith in polls, but he
is confident of success nonetheless. In the weeks before the
poll, An Phoblacht's MICK DERRIG spent time in the constituency.
This is his report.
When I had shadowed Pat Doherty on his victorious election campaign in West Tyrone much was made from the perspective of Dublin newsrooms that the contest was between the "magic and the machine". Readers were regaled with stuff like "there is a whiff of magic about West Tyrone and that magic is Brid Rogers".
Doherty won and the triumph that appalled Dublin 4 was put down to the crushing effectiveness of the "Sinn Féin machine".
My experience in Tralee and the rest of Kerry North found no sinister machine, only as dedicated a collection of working class people as it would be possible to find within these islands, working for a shared political goal.
From Director of Publicity Donal Cusack who worked through personal bereavements and Garda arrest, to Gerry Riordan in the shop whose mobile phone plays 'Some say the Divil is dead' to organiser Risteard Ó Fuaráin, I found not one Libyan trained canvasser.
Nor was this Belfast Sinn Féin put into crates and shipped south. With the exception of Paul Henry from South Derry, this was a completely Kerry operation.
Gerry told me proudly - with mock vainglory - that he was Director of Canvassing; actually there were days when he thought he might be Director of feckin' everything!
Every night at 6.30pm, the Sinn Féin office in Moyderwell was like a Japanese subway carriage. Young and old, men and women, lined up for their clipboards. Gerry, a Sinn Féin member for 30 years, told me that his mobile phone was on 24 hours a day.
Inured to years of proscription and censorship, the republican cottage industry that gets the message out was in full swing by the time I arrived in Tralee. Gerry showed me newsletters that were going through every door in the constituency. People were up at 6am through till 9am posting them through letterboxes every morning until the entire constituency was done. There was a general newsletter; one for health, women, and the list went on.
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Every night at 6.30pm, the Sinn Féin office in Moyderwell was like a Japanese subway carriage. Young and old, men and women, lined up for their clipboards
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The "machine" is actually a group of people bound together by an idea that is at the core of republicanism's irreducible dissidence on this island. That is a belief that somehow, someday, things can be different on this island for working class people. No sleaze, no poverty and no second class Taigs in the North.
The thing that seemed to be galvanising these people canvassing St Brendan's Park on a beautiful night wasn't the Garvaghy Road, but specifically southern issues. For sure, their worldview on the national question was a given, but the reasons they gave for knocking on doors for Martin Ferris were thoroughly local. There was far more talk about bribes in the South than pipe bombs in the North.
Martin Ferris's past is transparent in Tralee and it didn't seem to bother many people. This estate, I was reminded, was solid Dick Spring country. I got the same feeling that I was witnessing a seismic political shift as I did when I followed behind Pat Doherty in rock solid SDLP country in a leafy Omagh cul de sac to witness Brid Rogers' vote disintegrate and defect.
The constituency, of course, isn't only Tralee.
The day I went to Listowel I was to meet up with Martin Ferris and speak to him for the third time in as many weeks. While I was waiting for him, I spent half a day around the Sinn Féin nerve centre in Listowel.
I was looked after by Tom Harrington, in all probability a '40s man by the look of him - another generation hardened by state repression. But for the political parties who are in something close to an alliance against Sinn Féin, perhaps the most worrying aspect is the extent to which the republicans have youth on their side.
I also interviewed Tina O'Shea. Another stalwart of the nightly canvassing effort, this Presentation girl is already being headhunted to do interior design work. She has her sights fixed firmly on a degree to qualify her in this field. Her portfolio is already attracting attention. Her dad, an ex-hospital porter, is a Sinn Féin activist and is currently a youth worker in the town.
Sinn Féin in Kerry is managed by Risteard Ó Fuaráin. A 30-year-old newly married native of Causeway, this graduate quality engineer is in overall charge of Sinn Féin's growth in the entire county. His place in the scheme of things is to "pretend that no election is taking place, just to work away recruiting, building the party and so on".
His first experience of Sinn Féin testing itself at the polls in North Kerry came in the 1997 Dáil election. He was sceptical about the party's chances. "I thought we would get a respectable 4,000 number ones and that would give us a chance to build for the future," he said. In fact, Sinn Féin got 5,691 number ones. "This time the campaign is much more intense - there are greater expectations."
Risteard himself ran for the county council in 1999 in the Listowel electoral area. At the time, he was working for a company in Shannon and every night, he would drive the 180-mile round trip to canvass the area and then return to do another day's work. He polled 715 number ones and will stand next time. His unpaid work for the community doesn't end with being a republican. He is a member of the Ballyheigue Inshore Rescue Service, driving a fast rescue boat. Somehow the Celtic Tiger Me! Me! Me! phenomenon passed this guy by. His community, you feel, are the better for it.
Unpaid work, a sense of community, helping others, volunteering to take part in rescue operations, this is the sort of young man that builds the stable, safe communities that we all want to live in. Sadly, those entrusted with public safety don't view Risteard in that way. In his own quiet, reserved, completely convincing way, he recounted a litany of episodes of petty garda harassment - usually around driving.
Donal Cusack, Martin's Director of Publicity (always a poisoned chalice at any level of Sinn Féin), said there was evidence of an attempt to drown the Sinn Féin campaign in blank cheque largesse over the past few months. Estimates vary between Û70 million and Û100 million that the government has diverted into Kerry North, but the message is clear. They will spend heavily to prevent a Sinn Féin TD.
Donal was quite clear that both the carrot and the threat of the stick has been used to soften up an electorate that is clearly considering giving Sinn Féin one of the three seats. For the Sinn Féin activists themselves, the carrot has been conspicuous by its absence. Only the stick seems to be in evidence. But there is a confidence and expectation about that no amount of petty harassment can blunt, the energetic canvass underway on the highways and byways is reminiscent of this writer's best memories of the West Tyrone campaign.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)
