Toxic trolls will not stop me running: I will let the real people decide

THESE days, for anyone thinking of entering politics, the decision to run takes a lot of soul-searching. Women especially tend to not leap into things. We cross-examine ourselves on whether we have the capacity to serve our communities. You have to question yourself and what you can achieve.

Sadly, one of the things we have to factor in is social media and its impact, not just on ourselves but on our family and friends.

In the way modern politics operates, social media is now a key factor and not always in a good way.

As a communications lecturer, I know the potential of the internet for good.

But in Ireland, there is a new Valley Of The Squinting (or perhaps snarling) Windows, and those who squint do so on what almost appears to be a 24/7 basis.

Though I am at the lower end of the register, I know too well about the toxicity that is rife: especially towards women. I am from a political background and know all about the rough trading that goes on around politics.

I prefer to work with people, but I am not a shrinking violet. However, the truth of the matter is that, even for those like me – and especially for new female candidates – social media is a significant deterrent from becoming involved in politics.

Personally, I don’t get too excited about online negative comments from late-night, solitary keyboard warriors.

I am old enough and wise enough to realise that I can only get hurt by something or someone if I let them hurt me.

Additionally, I often think that having had teenage children results in nothing – and I mean nothing – being off the table in relation to criticism. I am open to criticism and to commentary for I know, even if I am a bit of an Irish Mum, I am not always right.

Having said all that though, running as a woman does lend oneself to being more of (although not exclusively so) a target for comments on personal appearances.

Examples include comments on my ‘big teeth’, while there is also a high level of concern over the size of my nose.

I never thought of myself as having a Roman nose but you learn a great deal online.

I do know I have big teeth but I am not sure how this adds to the political debate.

When my critics come at me with that barb, my first thought is of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood’s line about large-scale teeth being ‘all the better to eat you with’.

Of course, I am never going to do that because internet warriors always hide behind their anonymous accounts.

However, I do have a message for them – and that is that I’m going to let the people decide, not some anonymous internet warriors. I am going to stand up to my internet

critics because there are real practical things I want to achieve for my community should they want me to.

People are not being served by a political class that, even at council level, appears to have become separated from the people. I want to change that.

I was previously a Fianna Fáil councillor but increasingly I have felt that the party do not listen to the people they used to represent.

On this occasion I am running as an independent candidate because not being affiliated to any political party, means I can represent the communities interests without any bias.

It means I can speak freely without being told what to do by hidden cabals.

When it comes to serving the people, the comments on my teeth, or on my nose or any other part of my anatomy or dress, won’t deter me.

My message to you ‘bots’ online is that I have business to do and you won’t stop me.

I care about community, and you won’t cow me with your silly, immature comments.

I want to leave a better country for my family and my neighbours.

FOR me, the comments on my appearance and other attempts at bullying are a tedious distraction. In my case, the internet warriors hiding in the dark are not going to take away the rights of the people to make a final decision for or against me.

I am a believer in the view of Theodore Roosevelt: ‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

‘The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.’

I can only commend the bravery of those who have experienced far worse than I have and the hard work that groups like See Her Elected in taking on those who lurk sniping behind their squinting curtains.

We are a country that is crying out for change and for a better, more caring, more people-centred way of doing things. I will be seeking to put my shoulder to that wheel.

In Irish public life there is too much of an emphasis on politics and too little concentration on people.

I am seeking to be elected because I believe the maxim: ‘Nothing changes if nothing changes.’

In that regard, the internet warriors can – to borrow an old Irish saying – put that in their pipes and smoke it.