Dear Editor,
In the wake of the election with the last remaining posters still in place, I'm compelled to reflect on the practical usefulness of the tradition that is electioneering postering in Ireland, and more specifically locally. Both the poll topper in the Mayo County Council elections (Michael Kilcoyne ) and one of the first candidates elected in Castlebar (Ger Deere ) opted to refrain from postering altogether and another very successful county council election candidate Frank Durcan opted for relatively minimal postering.
It seems to me that the practice of postering is a tradition from another age which has, in this age of information technology and a huge variety of alternative relatively low cost to target medias, become hugely ineffective and should be regarded as obsolete. Indeed what struck me most about the postering during this particular election campaign, especially in the Breaffy area, was how the election posters became something of a focus of derision as well as a target for vandalism and defacement by obviously disaffected and possibly bored and angry individuals.
I can understand the use of election posters in the age of DeValera and Collins was by far the most effective, inexpensive, targeted, and impartial way of getting a message out to the general public. The multiplicity of local print media, local regional and national radio, the Internet and a multiplicity of social networks have all but made the practice of political posters obsolete.
I would therefore call upon the new county and town councils of Mayo, to enact as one of their first orders of business in their first sittings, a resolution by all members and by all political parties within the county to refrain from any future political postering within the county for any future elections or referenda.
Yours sincerely
Peter Jordan
Breaffy
Castlebar
