BLOCKBUSTER MOMENTS IN
THE coruscating roars of joy that accompanied Sinn Fein’s Johnny Mythen’s election at 5 p.m. on Sunday were worthy of Kurt Cobain and what followed was truly a MTV head-bangers’ ball of pure elation.
Bopping around on their heels the Sinn Fein faithful celebrated having gotten what they wanted after a 102 year wait.
They hugged.
They kissed.
They high fived.
And then they drank Enniscorthy dry.
The Oscars were on the telly, but the real drama was in St Joseph’s count centre where actors on the political stage didn’t disappoint, well except for the speeches.
‘There’s no show like a Verona Show,’ the ‘local and vocal’ candidate’s campaign manager Cyril Barden said.
Except a Sinn Fein Show that is and it’s exactly what anyone with a tweet’s bleep of the Wexford county centre got over two mind-bending days, when history was made, when hearts were broken, and excitement levels hit the roof.
The Oscar for Best Actor in a Revenge Movie went to Murphy. Having been deselected by Fine Gael at Christmas, the hauliers boss proved to be a juggernaut on the transfer front, getting bounce after bounce on Sunday night and throughout Monday to drive her into a Dáil seat on the 11th count with 11,849 votes.
She made history in the process by becoming the first candidate to get 7 per cent of the first preference vote (5,825) and still get elected.
‘The media did their best to get her elected!’ Independent rival Ger Carthy said.
The woman named after a newspaper headline about Shakespeare’s comedy opera ‘The Two Gentlemen of Verona’ – her mother happened to be reading in her hospital bed, she has been a mainstay in the media ever since – boosting her profile to enviable levels.
After a campaign which saw her and her team master the art of multi-location, (her posters claimed she was from everywhere from Ballykelly to Wexford), Murphy had the ‘Eye of the Tiger’ look about her as she faced the media this time, emboldened by her vote.
Standing upstairs in a boxing gym surrounded by punchbags, Murphy, who used Survivor song on her campaign, said she was never phased by her critics.
Coming in third after Mythen and Brendan Howlin, she had completed a whirlwind turnaround from when she had to swallow third place in the byelection she fancied winning after George Lawlor leapfrogged her to claim second place.
A national newspaper journalist christened Verona the Coronavirus when she turned up at the opening of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge, but unlike the bridge which was closed due to
Storm Ciara Sunday, the Wexford woman didn’t wobble and stayed calm, consistent and confident of victory throughout the weekend.
If her comeback was Rocky Balboa like, Mythen’s was the stuff of Celtic legend, with over 24.75 per cent of the vote in his back pocket,
The Enniscorthy man couldn’t contain his smile, nor could his 100 plus supporters who milled around the new celebrity who had pulled off the biggest comeback of any politician in Wexford’s political history having gotten just 818 votes in the local elections, losing his council seat – only to emerge from the political pyre, Phoenix-like with more than 18,000 votes.
Walking through the crowds, he seemed like a man whose feet weren’t on the ground, but rather in some higher plane.
Photographer Mary Browne spent some time organising the lift, directing Sinn Fein’s biggest fans to unit in a three-pronged team effort to lift him.
Afterwards he said the party last won an seat in 1918, following a Saturday election, before suggesting, cryptically, that the spirits of his Sinn Fein forefathers had returned to give him that luck and final push into political dreamland.
Tongue-tied, at times, he struggled to explain his Lazarus-like comeback from the political wilderness. No deal with God or the devil was struck but it’s safe to say the pubs of Enniscorthy were heaving on Sunday night and for a few days and nights thereafter as Sinn Fein, a party who know how to have fun, cut loose and enjoyed their rebirth as the most powerful political party in the nation.
Mythen’s late charge for a seat was reflected in polls but party members – while hoping it to be true – feared it was all based on hype, but the bookies are seldom wrong and they were spot on in backing Mythen.
The blockbuster narrative was set to continue with political anoraks and journalists frothing at the mouth at the prospect of a huge upset.
And just look at the main actors: two junior ministers: Minister for Defence Paul Kehoe and Michael D’Arcy Jnr whose remit was to cure the insurance industry. Add in Labour leader Brendan Howlin, Murphy and four Fianna Fáil hopefuls with profile and there was a cauldron of potent stuff abrewing.
‘No seat is safe,’ Fianna Fáil mental health spokesperson James Browne said a fortnight out from the election and he wasn’t wrong, except for Howlin whose election is certain a death and taxes in Wexford town. His team were putting a brave face on his vote, taking comfort in his victory in Rosslare, an area where Carthy and Murphy were expected to outvote him.
Fianna Fáil dropped the ball in running four candidates was the feeling on the floor as Lisa McDonald and then Michael Sheehan were shown the door.
Rising star Malcolm Byrne, who was elected only ten weeks previously, had been in a pool on election day, (he posted a picture of him online playing with a beach ball with a caption: searching for floating votes”.
Well on Monday afternoon that beach ball burst and the holiday vibes were well and truly over for the hard working North Wexford man who was overcome with emotion as he thanked his family for their support during his fourth campaign in ten months.
The Sinn Fein splash had soaked everyone, as Wexford County Council chairman Michael Sheehan alluded to in his defeat acceptance speech: ‘Nobody could have seen the surge that was coming for Sinn Fein. That has shaken everything and all of the projections and all of the foundations of every campaign is now looking a little bit different because of that but that is the rough and tumble of politics.’
He said Sinn Fein have questions to answer.
‘There were certain things in the campaign that didn’t make sense. How they were going to pay for things? How were they going to cut the LPT and not increase the Local Government Fund; that just didn’t marry.’
Did the Sinn Fein partygoers care one peanut. Nope!
Sinn Fein have a democratic mandate. They have been elected by the people of Wexford. One of their candidates – Patricia Ryan in Kildare South – even went on a holiday during her campaign only to return and top the poll within a few weeks with more than 10,000 votes.
‘We are probably going to have to sit with them at some stage and say we have to respect the voice of the people. The people have spoken but we don’t know what they have to say,’ Sheehan said, sounding a rare glum note.
Mythen was nowhere to be seen, but his name was on everyone’s lips. Open opprobrium for