Going ‘On the Canvass’ with a General Election candidate is a logistical operation in itself.
“We’ll be in Mountrath all day on Friday,” Eoin Delaney tells us, who is a special adviser to Fianna Fáil’s Sean Fleming in his role as Minister for State in the Department of Finance.
We won’t do all day with them, but we do like to observe the campaign for an hour or two.
By the time our other bits and pieces of work are done on Friday morning, it’s nearly lunchtime so we arrange to link up with the canvass team at 2pm. Sean, we’re told, is in Clonenagh National School, which is on the way into Mountrath from the Portlaoise side. Grand and handy.
So just after the appointed time, we rock up to the front door and tell the lady that answers that we’re there to see Sean Fleming. “Sean Fleming,” she says in utter bewilderment. “No, seriously, who are you looking for?”.
“Sean Fleming,” says good-humoured principal Melissa Honner who arrives on the scene. “You can tell him I’m looking for him!”
“He was outside there a while ago but I don’t see him now.”
As it turns out, Sean was at the school, not in the school. Part of his canvass is to hit as many schools as possible when parents are collecting kids. Him and/or some of his team will give out his leaflet and chat with anyone who raises an issue with them.
With the early collection done at Clonenagh, Sean and Jake Delaney, an Ogra Fianna Fáil member from Ballaghmore, drop into Eddie Phelan’s for a quick lunch. So that’s where we link up with them, as they’re tucking into a big wholesome bowl of stew.
“Eddie Phelan feeds all of Mountrath,” Sean tells us, who himself is based just down the road in Castletown.
“Between the restaurant, the takeaway and the catering business for parties, communions and confirmations, Eddie feeds the entire town!”
Various staff and customers stop to say hello, but the big chat is with Bernie Tynan, Michael Farrell and Bernie Phelan.
Bernie Phelan and Michael recently shared the Mountrath parish lotto jackpot of €11,000; Bernie Tynan was the promoter. After presenting the prize, they go for lunch.
From there, it’s up to Scoil Bhríd, on the road down to the Mountrath hurling pitch, for the 3pm pickup. Already waiting at the school, in their high-viz Sean Fleming bibs, are his brother Padraig and John Joe Fennelly.
Both are current county councillors. Padraig is the Cathaoirleach. John Joe is in business in the town, though Mountrath is no longer in his area since the local electoral boundaries were changed a number of years ago.
Between the three of them, there’s hardly a car that drives through that doesn’t get a leaflet off one of them. Of those that stop, Sean will lean down and talk in through the window.
“No interest,” says one man bluntly who doesn’t want to be engaged with. That’s as bad as it gets.
We’ll always hear stories of the grief politicians will get out and about; but from observing various campaigns over the years, it’s isolated enough, though they’ll all be cute enough to avoid it, particularly if they know the media are there to see it.
With the last of the kids collected, Sean and John Joe go one way. Padraig and Jake Delaney are sent elsewhere. Eoin Delaney had been up at Mountrath Community School and he’ll be dispatched in another direction. Later in the evening, they’ll be joined by, among others, Fint Cuddy, who contested the recent Local Elections.
All of the information will be fed back into the famous Fleming Machine, where Sean’s brother Brendan keeps a close eye on things.
We go to Kiln Lane with Sean and John Joe, where former TD and Minister John Moloney is waiting for them.
There is wealth of political experience among them. Sean himself is a TD since 1997, himself and John Moloney elected on the same day. John Joe Fennelly is a councillor since 1999.
But their involvement in politics goes way back beyond that. As we walk and chat, John Moloney tells us he has campaigned in every election since 1965. Even before that, he can remember, as a young boy in 1961, putting literature together for Paddy Lalor in the family pub in Mountmellick. And even beyond that, he can remember hearing about his father, a county councillor, supporting Paddy Gorry, from Kilcavan, who was a Fianna Fáil TD from 1927 to 1948.
Kiln Lane is an older estate, overlooking the Slieve Bloom mountains.
It is immaculately maintained and very spacious and it’s a regular in the Pride of Place competitions. In all there are 90 houses – a mix of local authority and those built by housing associations Respond and Cluid.
Slap bang in the middle is a children’s playground, adjacent to a residents community centre.
The original part of the estate was built in the mid to late 1970s. Among those we meet on the walkabout is Noel Wrest, the very first resident. He is a ball of energy and only delighted to meet the canvassers.
No door will be missed, though it’s a Friday afternoon and probably half of the doors go unanswered.
The three men will divide the houses between them. Two will go to one door, one to another. The three will never initially go to the same door at the same time.
But when doors are answered, it’s an almost overwhelmingly warm welcome. It’s more akin to visiting than canvassing.
“You may come down here and talk to Marian,” says John Joe as he beckons Sean. Marian is Marian Delaney, another of the long-term residents.
We also meet Mags and Stephen Moore. Mags is one of the chief bottle washers in the community. She tells us they’re living there nearly 50 years.
“You’ll have to have a big party for the 50th anniversary,” Sean jokes with her. “That’s a job now for you to organise.” There’s no objections to that suggestion.
We also bump into Martina Doheny, who cuts Sean’s hair from time to time, and greets him with a big hug.
At another house Michael Doheny is out working in his back shed and comes and chats to Moloney and Fleming over the fence.
“The Doheny vote in Mountrath is huge,” says John Moloney, who himself has strong family links to the town. “It’s like the Kennedy vote. If you can get the Doheny vote, you’re going well.”
We also meet different generations of the Phelan family – Paul, Shona, Tiffany, Brooke and Brody. They happily stand in for a photo at their front door.
The only issues that get any real chat is that there is a footpath on one side that needs repairing. Sean takes a note of it and says he’ll follow up. There’s also a consensus that the LED street lights that were put in a couple of years ago don’t provide half as much light as what was there before.
He’ll be 67 in February and if he gets elected and the Dáil runs its full term, he’ll celebrate his 70th birthday as a TD. He’s on course to spend 30+ years in Leinster House.
Does he every get fed up of it all? “If I did I wouldn’t stay doing it,” he says. “I still love it.”
“We’re two different parties and there’s the odd bit of squabbling,” he says about the prospect of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael going back into Government together.
“I don’t get into that myself. I say the public are intelligent and will make up their own mind.
“There are points of difference between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I have a different view on social housing than Fine Gael. We want to help people who need a leg up. We want to help people who are on the lower levels of income. Fine Gael might be appealing to a different sector of the electorate.
“But even though we are two different parties, we have worked well together. And I make the point that it’s like a marriage. Both are coming with different perspectives but you can make it work.”
This campaign compared to others?
“The mood is better this time than it was the last time,” he says.
“The one thing I haven’t figured out and I’m being honest, are the people being nice to everybody?
“And you don’t really know how they’re thinking? I’m very happy with the reaction but if everyone else is happy … we’ll find out on the day.”
