Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh brought a turnip into the RTE studio the other day and Gráinne Seoige got a little start. One of the gigs on the Seoige show involves a person coming in with mementoes that link them to significant things in their lives. And Micheál — the voice of the GAA and the ultimate Kerryman — arrived with a turnip. Why?
Micheál talked about his youth in west Kerry and how they used a turnip as a candlestick. You cut off part of the turnip so that it rested evenly on the window and then you shaped a hole into it where the candle fitted. It was the perfect candlestick insofar as the turnip would never go on fire and you could shape it for any type of candle. You had a light in a Christmas window. Micheál’s message was that if you didn’t have what you needed, then you improvised. There is always a way, he said. And he linked it to the recession and the state of the economy in Ireland now. There are times when the candle only flickers… and times when it glows. The graph goes up and down and Micheál said we had the capacity to improvise, to be imaginative, and we would come out of this flickering economy without too much delay. Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh is a superb communicator and an inspiring man in his own right — continuing to commentate on hectic GAA games into his late seventies. And he shaped that parable around a turnip from the ground of Ireland — an unconventional object in a flashy Dublin 4 studio. And do you know but Fianna Fáil is going unconventional too!
By the time you open up this paper on this December Thursday morning Fianna Fáil men and women in Galway will have got invitations to an interview. These are the people who want to run for the party in next year’s county council and city council elections — and other local elections. The interview team have been working around the country and now they have reached Galway. Indeed, this very day, some of the prospective candidates may be attending interviews to see if they are fit to represent Fianna Fáil.
No convention for the faithful
The FF interview board will send recommendations to party HQ in Dublin, and by that decision you stand or fall. There will be no selection conventions locally in Fianna Fáil in the traditional way.
It appears that HQ in Dublin fear that people with a “cloigean turnap” would be selected by the party faithful on the ground. Now a “cloigean turnap” translates directly to “turnip head” and it was a term used in Connemara by scamps to indicate that somebody hadn’t a star of sense. But who has sense when it comes to selecting candidates? There is some recent history in the west.
There was a European election in 2005 and Fianna Fáil HQ — including then taoiseach Bertie Ahern — wanted Frank Fahey as the candidate in the southern part of the Connacht/Ulster constituency. They feared that the sitting MEP, Seán Ó Neachtain… who had been co-opted to the parliament… wouldn’t hold a candle in the contest. But Fianna Fáil in the west revolted and after two stirring conventions Seán Ó Neachtain got the votes from the delegates and became a west of the Shannon hero. There is a story about a Fianna Fáil stalwart in Galway West who met Bertie somewhere and said to him: “Well we got Seán Ó Neachtain nominated.” Bertie shot back fairly fast, “Well, can ye elect him now?” They could and they did! So where are the “turnip heads”?
The party faithful stood their ground in the Radisson Hotel in January of 2007 at the celebrated convention to select candidates for the General Election in Galway West. The faithful on the ground wanted four candidates and HQ wanted three. In stirring scenes John Joe Halloran from Clonbur — now chairman of the GAA in Galway — leapt on the stage, grabbed the microphone, and declared freedom for the west. It was up to the men and women on the ground to decide, he said, and they were no “turnip heads”. The convention broke up in disarray but HQ selected their three candidates and the demands for another convention didn’t work. The candle that blazed in the Radisson flickered out.
Is there hope in Pádraig’s card?
But Fianna Fáil HQ cannot all be “turnip heads”. Why are they ending the conventions? Wasn’t a convention like 20 Christmases in one for the party faithful. Wasn’t it there that the candles of hope and fervour were re-ignited and the grassroots of the party were set on fire? It was the day when the councillor totally depended on the goodwill and support of hundreds of delegates from far and wide. Such conventions, whether in New Inn or in Maam Cross, were big gatherings of the clan. They were often garnished, not with turnips but with the whiff of political intrigue rising from quiet spoken corners. But party headquarters were getting increasingly concerned that candidates who could not compete electorally in a more diverse and fast moving society were being picked locally. Galway city became a hotbed of controversy within Fianna Fáil ranks after the last local election when they only got two seats out of 15 in the city council. In defence of Galway, though, the party was getting bad results nationally that day. But FF headquarters have grounded the conventions and like the Christmas turnips of west Kerry, they will have to be consigned to the mementoes of the memory to be talked about beneath the fairy lights. And that reminds me…
I sense it’s time for that inspiring annual Christmas card from Pádraig McCormack, TD. Some soreheads in Galway city were giving out about his telephone number being on the card a few years ago. But Pádraig rose above that and reached new heights with his verses in the following years. And if he didn’t have a verse available for the card — just like Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh — Pádraig improvised and showed he was no turnip head when it came to poetry himself. We have to wait for Pádraig’s card so we can have a conventional Christmas.
