Listening to music on the way can be dangerous so I tend to go without, which gives me an opportunity to reflect on the day ahead.
Last week while cycling out of Balbriggan, I noticed that some of the Fianna Fail election posters had the party name written in particularly small font. I wasn’t exactly ‘flying’ along, but I found it difficult to read what party these upstanding members of the community were standing for.
My earliest recollection of elections in Ireland is a mental image of an ice cream van doing the rounds of a housing estate in Drumcondra, with pictures of Charlie Haughey posted on the side of the van. Looking back, it was kind of like a scene from a Roddy Doyle story. The van was playing ridiculous ice-cream-van-music that was interrupted occasionally with a hiss and a few crackles, and maybe the odd “Testing, one, two, three!” before someone shouted out a “Vote Charlie” slogan, viva Zapita and all that. T-shirts and sweets were handed out to aid the impact of the message.
How things have changed ... or have they? It must be confusing for older generations who looked up to the local priests, bank managers, publicans or politicians, all of whom have fallen from their lofty heights in society. It’s probably a bit unfair to include publicans in that group, but with the smoking ban and reduced sales, I suppose they are feeling a bit of hurt too...
Back to the bike, and during my journey through three voting constituencies I gazed at election posters in a different light, wondering what messages the politicians were trying to convey. Those from the ruling parties were distancing themselves from their clans, with huge font variations (resulting in tiny fonts). Gormley was no longer fully Green: he had gone pink ... with just a splash of green. The “Green Party” wasn’t exactly figuring prominently on their posters, just like the Fianna Fail ones.
Sinn Fein had the largest proportion of their posters taken up with the party name, with Fine Gael and Labour having slightly smaller fonts. Sinn Fein, like the Greens, had to remind the electorate to “Vote No 1” for their party leader.
As I drew nearer to the City Centre, I noticed the sharp increase in Eamon Gilmore’s posters: they were everywhere, in different shapes and sizes. Some were the usual Labour Party style: others read Le Chéile (together). Just the odd Kenny and Martin to break up the gazillion gazes of Gilmore...
I must admit that Enda Kenny’s regal-like pose looks the most convincing of all the prospective political leaders perched on the top of our city’s lampposts.
The image of Kenny looks down on the glut of Gilmore’s; the off-green Gormley’s; the fine-fonted Martin’s; and the “Vote No.1” Adams.
There were surprisingly few defaced posters; they were mostly Martin’s that had slid down to within the reach of passing scribes.
The only positive to take from the probable apathy of the electorate is the highly unlikely event of any kind of civil war situation occurring after this election. However, civil-war politics may still be visible when long-term Fianna Fail members turn up at the polling stations. Old habits die hard, and even though all the pre-election polls forecast a majority result for Fine Gael, the de Valera supporters will find it hard to draw that x beside a new name.
Maybe they will, as a token, give their first and second votes to obscure candidates, which is, in effect, saying, “I’ll make you wait and sweat ... but here you go anyway.”
