There can be few jobs more unpalatable right now than being a Fianna Fáil election candidate - or even a Fianna Fáil canvasser - in the run up to June 5. The party is facing a drubbing at the polls. And whatever doorstep hostility has been there over the past two weeks, it will be nothing as compared to the anger when next month's pay cheque leaves Sean Citizen with a huge hole in what is available to him to pay his bills.
In Castlebar, the uphill battle for Fianna Fáil is of Everest proportions. The party is still striving to regain the state of unity which was once its trademark. Local morale has taken another hit with the studied rejection of Beverley Flynn issued by Brian Cowen when he ordained the neophyte Dara Calleary as Junior Minister over the controversial Flynn. And if Beverley took the blow with stoical grace, at least in public, the lesson for her is that any preferment for high office under the Cowen regime is now gone out the window.
Little wonder then that Castlebar Fianna Fáil aspirants for office have taken to doing their own canvassing, on their own, in the hope that personal appeal might help stave off the wrath which is out there awaiting anyone brave enough to sport a party label too flamboyantly.
The new enlarged Castlebar area has seven County Council seats. Fianna Fáil has four runners. Party optimists are hopeful of taking three. More reasoned observers can not see them taking any more than the two they already enjoy.
The omens are not good. Between 1999 and 2004, when times were good, Fianna Fáil's county council vote in Castlebar fell by almost 1,000. There is no sign of that slippage being arrested. Sean Bourke, who is not running again, is a major loss at a time when stability is needed. To add to the woes, he will not be well enough to go out and canvass for a successor. The one bright spot is that Al McDonnell, long serving and experienced, will have a bigger harvest of votes this time and should, with a push, be able to bring another runner across the line.
As things stand, that runner looks likely to be Blackie Gavin, a popular and proven vote getter, who has served his time on Castlebar Town Council and is widely known and liked among the party grassroots. If Gavin does have a problem, it may well be that he is campaigning in two elections and seeking two votes each time he knocks on a door - one for the Town Council and one for the County Council. Asking for two number ones is a big ask, given the prevailing climate, and Gavin might find himself falling between two stools.
Both hands outstretched
The other Fianna Fáil candidates are Aiden Crowley and Mickey Feeney. Crowley is also seeking election to two councils and, like Gavin, he is canvassing with both hands outstretched looking for support.
Of the four, Feeney is the unknown quantity when it comes to election predictions. His relative freshness may work to his benefit since the anecdotal view is that Fianna Fáil first time candidates are being more sympathetically received on the canvass than their more experienced colleagues who are seen to be part of the old problem. He could be the surprise trick in the Fianna Fáil box.
For the Castlebar Town Council, Fianna Fáil is running four in the hope of at least retaining the three they held on the outgoing council. Gavin and Crowley are the frontrunners, with Pat King and new man Stephen Lavelle completing the ticket. King, a former Mayor of the town, served from 1999 before surprisingly losing his seat five years ago. In normal times he would be expected to be returned fairly comfortably. But these are not normal times, and Fianna Fáil may face the prospect of being left with a mere two Town Council seats. Lavelle, the youngest candidate in the field, is mounting an intensive canvass and is backed by a strong Fianna Fáil pedigree. Like Feeney, he may too benefit from the fact that he is a newcomer and might get a more favourable reception on the ground than his more seasoned team mates.
Ironically, there is one factor which Fianna Fáil mentors wryly believe may help to turn the wind in their favour. Frank Durcan's entry into the race for both Town and County Councils, and his scathing criticisms of the established parties, may damage Fine Gael (his old party ) more than it will Fianna Fáil. If he succeeds in denting the Fine Gael voting block in Castlebar, then it may just rebound to the good of Fianna Fáil. It would be surely ironic if Durcan, for decades the bête noir of Fianna Fáil, was to help the Soldiers of Destiny to salvage something from the upcoming wreckage.
