The Gorey Details

Wexford is Leinster’s biggest county. It’s a constituency that has existed since the early years of the state. While geographically it remains the same, in terms of its voters it is a very different place to what it was at the start of the century. Voters at the south end of the county gravitate towards Waterford for services. Those in Gorey often travel to Dublin. Travelling time is less and many Dubliners have moved south to find a more affordable home. A walk around Gorey gives you an interesting insight into the local economy. Plenty of take aways, restaurants, bars for socialising. The boutiques, coffee shops and business on the main street.

However Gorey has planning issues. Retail has moved to the fringe of the town centre while housing is a long walk away. For commuters arriving late home from work, there’s the added nuisance of the need to drive to Tesco or Dunnes if the fridge is empty. It’s a town with more traffic than comparable towns in the county.

But when it comes to politics, the D’arcy name is synonymous with the town. The town centre and the agricultural hinterland has been good to Fine Gael.  That was until last November when Malcolm Byrne won the bye election for Fianna Fail. Michael D’arcy faces into this election with the challenge of his near neighbour for the lion’s share of the local vote. North of Gorey there is no large urban area. If both Byrne and D’arcy are to succeed they need to battle for local dominance and move south into James Browne’s bailiwick.

There is no other significant candidate in the local area. The Green Candidate withdrew despite her good showing.  The party has installed a replacement however their website gives no details. Draw your own conclusions as to how the party regard her chances.

Gorey will elect one TD. But could it possibly elect 2? Opinion polls show that Fine Gael may be losing votes, however it is as to, who, where and how much is lost that may decide whether it is D’arcy of Kehoe or both is elected.

Conventional wisdom suggests Fine Gael will win 2 seats. However, consider this. Fine Gael according to one poll is losing votes to Sinn Fein. In 2016, Paul Kehoe just about held on by 50 votes from Sinn Fein’s johnny Mythen.  He is vulnerable to further vote loss and while Fine Gael may be losing votes over all, were he to proportionally lose more than Kehoe, Kehoe could be eliminated but electing D’arcy on his transfers. There’s a school of thought that it may be Kehoe under more pressure than Michael D’arcy. Kehoe also sees Verona Murphy on the prowl in the South West where he usually performs well.  That scenario would see Johnny Mythen take the second seat in Enniscorthy District instead of Paul Kehoe.

Fanciful? Maybe but it is something to bear in mind as the count progresses. Malcolm Byrne would prefer Kehoe to hang in and to see D’arcy under pressure in the hope that a D’arcy elimination will send Gorey transfers his way to elect him.

That’s politics, candidates spend all day wondering how to get elected and the rest of the day trying to see how they can stay elected.

And they're off!

The closer we came to the end of the Christmas recess, the easier the decision to hold a General Election became. 3 weeks out from voting there’s already 16 candidates in the field in Wexford, with more likely to come.  General Elections are fundamentally different to a local election. For some parties a general election may be about representation and putting down roots that might bear fruit in the future. For others its about numbers that will count where it counts in government formation.

If Princess Diana once thought that 3 made for a crowd, one wonders what Meghan Markle’s late mother in law might have made of the line up for Wexford in the forthcoming General Election. Already over half of the candidates who ran 4 years ago have announced their candidacy once more. It is early days yet and while there has been canvassing , few issues have brought  candidates into debate with one another.

The inner turmoil in Fianna Fail has been well documented elsewhere for some time. However Fine Gael only clarified that the number of candidates it will run this week. Uncertainty is the also the order of the day in People Before Profit. Deirdre Wadding made a surprise announcement of her political return having replaced Cinnamon Blackmore who in turn had taken on the job of Dail candidate from New Ross woman Susan Breen. 3 different candidates since last September is a far cry from 2016. Fine Gael on the other hand have decided that 3 is also beyond their reach and finally decided to stick with both outgoing ministers.

And so to Enniscorthy. Right in the middle of County Wexford, Enniscorthy has benefitted from a new by-pass which has made the town easier to get through.  Enniscorthy should be on the cusp of taking off but its not. Economic uncertainty still dogs the down with traders complaining at the level of rates. A good judge of a local economy is the health of advertising. The Echo Group of  Newspapers based in the town shut over 2 years ago leaving a hole socially and economically in the town. The Slaney runs through Enniscorthy and has down through the years  traditionally seen one side of the town eye the other with suspicion.Bridging those two sides has been a job that mere mortals found tough in the past. Enniscorthy is a Fianna Fail stronghold but that's not to say its spoken with one political voice down through the years. Johnny O'Leary of Labour and Ivan Yates have represented the area in the Dáil despite Enniscorthy being much smaller than Wexford.

 The current deputies for Enniscorthy are James Browne who is the third of his family line to hold a seat and Paul Kehoe of Fine Gael who just about beat off Johnny Mythen from Sinn Fein last time round.

All 3 go again. Apart from them, Seanie O’Shea and Ger Donnoghue Renua  have strong roots in the Enniscorthy district and may expect to poll well but for Renua it may well be the last throw of the dice. Aontú competes with it for the same socially conservative vote. The lost of these votes from Sinn Fein has reduced Johnny Mythen’s chances of a seat. Indeed Mythen losing his own council seat at the local election was one of the major shocks last year. Mythen is a popular and well regarded man in Enniscorthy who if he had been in any other party would have made more political progress. 

But  Browne is a banker for FF, quietly plodding away regardless on constituency work.

I don’t see Johnny Mythen pushing Paul Kehoe as close this time, Kehoe’s threat is from Verona Murphy has he also secures a lot of votes in South Wexford, votes that Ms Murphy thinks may be hers for the taking with her right wing speil.

Enniscorthy will elect one TD at least, my heart tells me it will elect two but its too early to be certain of that. If there is a shock in Wexford it may well be in the north of the county where it is to be detected.   

#GE20 only question is will it be sooner or later?

Happy New Year, a busy and potentially politically unstable year lies ahead. We are guaranteed a general election on a date yet to be decided. Over the next few months this blog will look at the General Election campaign in Wexford and how it progresses. Wexford has had a head start on most other constituencies in the country. We know what the local issues are from the bye-election campaign. Indeed we know many of the candidates who will feature over the next few months. It’s my own view that the date will decide the issues that may form the part of the national campaign.

An early election set for February will see health to the forefront. A Summer election may be preferred by Fine Gael in the hope that EU-UK Trade talks arising from Brexit will drive the debate and the FG campaign will be based about why change a Taosieach who is performing on an international stage. It will be about FG getting Brexti done!

I’m at a loss to understand why Fianna Fail want to wait until late Spring for an election.  Already a few FF TD’s are getting anxious about backing any more FG ministers in a confidence vote. Another confidence vote in Simon Harris is a certainty. Fianna Fail seem to be of the frame of mind that if they say nothing, power will simply slip into their hands. Under the radar is Sinn Fein, buoyed up by their unexpected victory in the Dublin mid West bye-election. Forget their hammering in Westminster, SF only want to be the Dáil. Their prospects may well be improved by a forthcoming deal to revive the administration at Stormont. This will deflect the frequent criticism they get of not wanting to take the hard decisions in office. It will also eliminate the logistical nightmare of running in 2 separate elections either side of the border within a short space of time.

On a local level all 4 major parties have selected their General Election candidates; Fianna Fail have 4, Fine Gael have 2 with another to be nominated, Labour, Aontú and Sinn Fein running one each. Last time round Wexford had 17 candidates for 5 seats. Fine Gael are certain to add a third candidate but beyond that it remains to be seen if the Greens, Social Democrats or Socialist Wrokers Party- Socialist Party will nominate a candidate and whether Verona Murphy will be tempted back into the campaign as a independent.  Perhaps we’ll see  15 names on the ballot paper.

Already the tell tale signs are there of internal friction in Fianna Fail. Before Christmas Deputy James Browne circulated his calendar to the voters in Wexford. This week saw Michael Sheehan circulate a calandar in South Wexford describing himself as the Fianna Fail candidate in South Wexford ignoring his running mate from South Wexford, Lisa McDonald.

His strategy is to eat into both McDonald and Murphy’s support in South Wexford by pushing a line of a TD for New Ross. Newly elected Deputy Malcolm Byrne will now in the cold light of day need to come to terms with the reality that he shares Gorey District with Minister Michael D’arcy and needs to push south for votes. That will bring him into conflict with the Browne Dynasty in Enniscorthy District. Sheehan has a much easier task to get elected this time around. Having kept out of the row about who FF would run, Sheehan may find preference votes from fellow Fianna Fail candidates easier to come by than either Byrne or McDonald. Sheehan has been expanding his presence in Wexford District in the last few months with his roadside hoardings urging electors  to shop local and attend the Wexford Opera.  These are increasing Sheehan’s profile outside his home base.

New Ross has always politically rewarded Fianna Fail much more than Fianna Fail has economically rewarded New Ross in the past. There’s every sign that this will once more be the case after the next election, especially if Fianna Fail are in office. Not every candidate has had the luxury of an indulgent electorate but Michael Sheehan won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. It will be extremely close between Sheehan and Byrne as to who will take a seat for FF seat.

Verona Murphy will soon announce what is already an open secret, i.e .that she will run once more for the Dáil as an independent. Over the Christmas the FG branding disappeared from outside her office. This will leave a vacancy on the Fine Gael ticket which will be presumably for a woman.  I suspect that if Bridin Murphy wants to run, all she as to do is to ask for it. She may struggle but FG will be eternally grateful to her and who knows what that mean into the future?

Verona Murphy has a different task at hand second time of asking.  At first hand she may wish to portray herself in the Mick Wallace mould, self made business person, unconventional and from the south west of Wexford. But that’s where the overlap ends. Call Wallace and his voters what you will but they won’t have truck with extreme views on asylum seekers. Murphy will not poll as well as she thinks in a general election where she gets little national profile.

She may however damage in the eyes of the electorate the word independent for many a long year. This may be Verona Murphy’s most long lasting contribution to Wexford politics. So that’s my focus on New Ross District for the forthcoming election. Ireland’s longest bridge will soon be opened. Built behind schedule so now let’s see if all the candidates can get over it.