Mike Cubbard is perched on a sofa in the bare-walled living room of his new house, supping a mug of tea, describing his pregnant wife being threatened with a beating, their children burned alive, and his mother raped.
Although remaining matter-of-fact throughout a difficult conversation, traces of emotion seep through recollections of a decade of harassment before moving to a new home four months ago. He admits to a numbness, and speaks of anxiety. The 40-year-old is angry that a national newspaper recently intimated an odious connection between his mayorship, and his family’s new house, which they rent in Rahoon.
“I do find it difficult, some days, to be motivated as a public representative, because of what we’ve gone through,” admits Cubbard. “And I know people are still whispering about this article.”
What the article in the Irish Sunday Mirror did not report, was that Councillor Cubbard and his wife, Karen, faced a decade of a harassment in their old house from antisocial elements from the east side of the city.
They waited twelve years on a city council housing transfer list, while two of their children developed respiratory issues from mould. The mayor of Galway could not get a mortgage to buy a family home “within 100km of the city” because a councillor’s part-time salary is not recognised by banks, and that him and Karen pay at least 17 per cent of their household income as rent, as per their lease.
"There's this assumption that we're all on a gravy train, if you read online comments," he says.
Cubbard earns €30,000 annually as a councillor. The busy, one-year mayor's gig earns €20,000. He works full-time as a fundraiser for Croí, and Karen works part-time for Aviva. "I got into politics because of no working class voice from my area. We feel the pinch-points, like back to school, or Christmas, and we face the same housing challenges all young people do," he says.
“I'm a public representative, and I represent the public the best I can, but I ask for some level of private life. Like, people don't own me,” he says, in response to mountains of social media denigration that Cubbard’s family has attracted in the wake of the Mirror article.
Lanky and long, sporting a tight haircut and neat beard, the 40-year-old occasionally pauses, eyes silently focused toward the window, with a view of the drizzly street outside, remembering.
“I suppose I’ve never felt anxiety, and I know many people have, but I find it now,” he says, describing a panic attack in Dunnes Stores last month, when he felt people were talking about him.
His house smells of fresh paint and clean laundry. Only a few months into a new build, the only personal touches so far are a CCTV-monitored doorbell, and a holy water font in the hall. Security and protection are priorities.
Cubbard has his family’s permission to speak publicly about a decade of fear and abuse; a nightmare for the family of Mike, his wife Karen, and their children Ryan (15 ), Adam (11 ), and Ben (10 ), who lived together in Sliabh Rua, in Ballybane, for almost 16 years, in the council house his wife was reared in. An August newspaper report on the Cubbards’ housing situation, since withdrawn, suggested the Cubbards got a housing transfer at the same time he was elected mayor for the third time.
“Karen grew up there, and she always defends it. It was a good estate, with good neighbours… and we had good neighbours in our time too, and when we left. But unfortunately, like many communities, a small minority of people cause problems, made worse by a local authority not dealing with, or even ignoring issues.”
The house was Karen’s, who succeeded to the tenancy when her mother moved out. Cubbard says an early memory of things going wrong was 11 years ago, when a passer-by, high on heroin, threatened to beat his pregnant partner with a golf club. Gardaí were informed, but no arrests made.
Since then, Cubbard’s children witnessed mass brawls outside their former home, domestic violence spill into the street, constant anti-social behaviour and verbal abuse, animal welfare worries, and they have been hysterical with fear as men banged on their front door at 2am, demanding entry.
Their father’s car had its tyres slashed three times, and a visiting granny’s car, once. Their mother was verbally abused three times within six months as they sat, petrified, in her car.
A note threatening physical violence toward the mayor was pinned to a council vehicle, and Karen was warned “to sleep, one eye open, as the last time you’ll see your kids is them burning in their sleep.”
Garda sources in Galway confirmed to the Advertiser they are aware of the Cubbards' situation, but declined to respond to specific, alleged events.
Twice, squads of armed gardaí in full kit have marched through the family’s kitchen, as the children ate breakfast before school, attempting to access a nearby property in an emergency.
“So all of that, mentally, for a child of six or seven years’ old, is traumatising. It has to have a lasting effect,” says Cubbard, who is now worried about his children being exposed to the online harassment he faces, as they get older. One comment, suggesting he should tie a brick around his neck, and jump in the Corrib, has stayed with his wife, he says. "Again, all of us in public life have families behind the scenes, who carry this strain."
Fake WhatsApp profiles on a Latvian simcard, pretending to be Cubbard, propositioned council colleagues’ wives, and female politicians in Dublin. The online abuse spikes when he talks publicly about drugs and crime, although Cubbard has noted other, more political trends too.
Graffiti on Westside Community Centre, Cubbard’s home patch, five years ago, spelled out: ‘Cubbard, we know where you live’ and ‘We’ll get you’. In March, a year later, graffiti at St Michael’s GAA Club said: ‘We know where you are', and threatened his mother with rape. Cubbard, one of seven siblings, remembers that day well.
“If someone doesn’t like me, that’s fine. I’m not put there to please everybody, and not everyone agrees with my politics. But my mother? She’s a private person. [My siblings and I] couldn’t fathom how someone could write that. I was floored. We all stayed in her house that day.”
Mayor Cubbard has to rush away to assist justice minister, Jim O'Callaghan, cut the ribbon on the new Rape Crisis Centre in the Claddagh, but he pauses to conclude that with a new job, new house and his family safe, life is positive.
"The first night we moved in was a Friday, and Ben said: 'I'm going outside to play on the street, Mam.' And Karen got upset, because it was the first time she'd ever heard any of her children say they wanted to play outside. They can do that now."
