To opt to stand for Fianna Fail in his first election at a time of almost universal disdain for the party requires a certain amount of courage or foolhardiness. That Claregalway man Malachy Noone managed to pull it off, taking votes right across the Oranmore electoral area shows that perhaps element of both were needed.
Pipped by just 28 votes for the second seat in the four-seater Oranmore constituency, Noone’s election must have come as a huge bonus to a battered party which was running two debutantes in the area and which must have feared that they might have been squeezed out by the heavy hitters who squared up for the last seat.
And while some may have seen him as an outsider, in this newspaper last week, when we predicted that Noone would win along with Cuddy and McDonagh, we felt that the Oranmore electoral area was the group of death in which two big hitters out of Enda O’Rourke, Liam Carroll, or Michael Eames were going to take a fall in the race for the last seat.
And so it turned out.
To those who know him, Noone is a deep thinker who speaks with nuggets of wisdom and commonsense and whose non-combatative and reasoned style is sure to endear him to those who work with him for the next five years.
He has been been well known in the Claregalway area, for his numerous local activities. As a driving force behind the No Name club, he has formed a unique connection with the youth of the area with whom he has established an amazing empathy.
But then Malachy Noone has always been surprising people. Almost two decades ago, as a young member of Compantas Lir, he stunned theatre audiences with his awardwinning role as a mentally challenged young man in the poignant play Them. Cast members recall that so powerful was his performance that during a scene in which he faced being left homeless following rejection by his family, a woman in the audience up the country was so moved by his performance that she stood up and cried out “I’ll give him a home.”
Now Noone has a new stage on which he will be once again representing his community and he is looking forward to the challenge.
“It still hasn’t sunk in yet, but I’m sure it will over the next few days,” he said, immediately after his election, adding that all celebrations were put on hold because Claregalway as a community is still hurting and scarred by the shocking murder of young Kieran Cunningham last week. This week, as he accepts the outstretched hand of congratulations from many across his homeplace, he is working out how his term will be shaped, what he hopes to achieve working in tandem with his local colleagues.
When the tallies were first counted on Saturday morning at Leisureland, he polled well in Annaghdown, knowing that in former Mary Hoade country, he needed to mobilise a Fianna Fail vote if he was to stand any chance of staying ahead of FG’s Eamon Fox and his FF colleague Dolores Kilroe.
And while pickings were scarce for him south of the railway line, Kilroe picked up enough to ensure almost half her vote went to him after she was eliminated on the third count. Ms Kilroe was disappointed that she did not stay in the hunt longer, but the proliferation of strong candidates in the general Oranmore area meant that every vote would be eagerly contested and that she could perhaps only rely on the support of the diehards.
There was disappointment too for Labour candidate Josette Farrell, who had worked tirelessly for several years as an advocate of the Claregalway bypass, but perhaps it was her close association with this project that meant her profile was limited to this area, denying her the geographical spread needed to be in the shake-up at the business end of the count. Alas for her as well is the fact that most of the people affected by the bypass issue, ie, the thousands of commuters who crawl through in their cars, don’t have a vote in that area.
Afterwards she told me that she was disappointed, but that she had enjoyed the campaign.
“It was a fantastic experience and gave me a great insight into how politics works. I’ll never forget it,” she said.
However Ms Farrell’s house had been raided by burglars while she was out canvassing during the campaign, and much of her jewellery and personal valuables had been taken, so the campaign will have other less pleasurable memories for her on that front.
Jim Cuddy’s vote was particularly impressive, given that like all of the other ex-PDs, the organisation of the campaign fell on the shoulders of a few. To top the poll was particularly pleasing for the Carnmore man.
“My ambition at the very start was to get a seat. To hold the seat was the important thing because the people in the area wanted me to hold the seat for them because they knew I was doing the work for them.
“I hadn’t a party machine but I had a fantastic team of workers and canvassers working with me on it and they were very dedicated from the start. The party machine puts more responsibility on you and makes it a more onerous task but I think that the fact that a person is willing to do the work and the people have acknowledged that you have done the work is very satisfying.”
He acknowledged that the new council faces severe funding difficulties
“There will be a lot of challenges ahead and the current economic downturn is going to pose major headaches. But central government is going to have to fund local councils more than it is doing at the moment. It is impossible for the manager to operate under the present climate and budget.
“There are important jobs to be done out there and of course these schemes will create employment if nothing else, and take people who could be gainfully employed off the dole — the roads is a classic example of this,” he said.
He added that he is confident that the council will pull together to make the best use of the scarce resources.
“I have to say that unlike our city counterparts, Galway County Council has worked extremely well and even at local area level we have always worked very well together and that is the way it has to be, because the people don’t want any of this squabbling,” he concluded.
The performance of FG veteran Jarlath McDonagh was very impressive. His local votes were overwhelming, and gave him the confidence to cease canvassing a week before the election, knowing that he had the support to hold on to the seat for Lackagh and Turloughmore.
