Candidates are not setting social media on fire just yet
Concubhar Ó Liatháin casts a cold eye on the candidates’ online presence
WHILE pundits and commentators believe this will be an election in which social media plays an influential role, it appears platforms like Facebook and Twitter are playing second fiddle to the door to door and shopping centre canvass in the constituency of Cork North West.
Most candidates have an online presence – a website dedicated to their election campaign – but not all have a social media presence that is easily discoverable.
In nearly all cases the social media profiles of the different candidates are very active and up to date. It’s understandable perhaps that candidates are very busy on the election trail and smaller parties don’t have the people to maintain their representatives presence online.
In Cork North West you can follow all the candidates via their Facebook profiles – though it did take this correspondent some time to find them all as some of the budding TDs personal profiles were to the fore and their candidate profiles had to be accessed via the party websites.
On Aindrias Moynihan’s facebook page, we see the candidate in the Dáil raising concerns regarding the pressure under which the childcare sector is coming due to the hike in insurance premiums and what some creche/childcare providers have found to be an inadequate response from the government.
This was posted on Monday and had 18 likes and seven shares less than a day later.
Over on Michael Moynihan’s profile we catch up with his van which is towing a billboard featuring the candidate around different parts of north Cork in the hope of attracting votes. The van on tour was on the way to Freemount for a rally there on Tuesday evening, when we caught up with it.
Michael Creed’s role as Agriculture Minister was front and centre at a debate on issues relating to farming run in Tullamore by The Farmers’ Journal on Monday but he was back in Cork North West on Tuesday where valuable votes could be sought at Macroom Mart. Later that day he was out in Baile Mhúirne in front of Coláiste Íosagáin, which is the subject of a €2.4m grant from the European Regional Enterprise Fund for a proposed regional digital hub being put together for the site by Údarás na Gaeltachta.
In the accompanying video he’s speaking as Gaeilge about his commitment to Gaeltacht issues though, as he says himself, he’s not a ‘cainteoir dúchais’ or native speaker. As Cork North West includes a Gaeltacht area with a couple of thousand votes, not an unwise move. Every advantage has to be pressed home at this stage of the campaign.
Green Party candidate Colette Finn will have done herself favours also among the LGBTI community in the constituency by attending and participating in a hustings type event run by LINC in Cork with, it appears, a number of other candidates, not from Cork North West.
Fine Gael’s candidate in the northern section of Cork North West, Cllr John Paul O’Shea, is canvassing as if his life depends on it to garner every extra vote he can muster – and he’s very busy also on social media with frequent and regular posts.
He was on the campaign trail in Ballincollig with Taoiseach Leo Varadakar on Saturday and at the Macra na Feirme National Capers Final in Ovens on Monday.
Ciaran McCarthy was busy enough also as the barrister and Social Democrat candidates appears to be using the social media as a means of reporting on his canvas. According to this he was in Lisheen Woods on Monday evening.
“An issue which has increasingly come to light is that people are unsure about how to complete their ballot paper. “This is completely understandable as we only get to do this every five years or so and it’s not really at the forefront of people’s minds when going about their daily business.”
Over on her profile, Becky Kealy is trumpeting a voter who’s had a Road to Damascus (or is that Derrynagree?) conversion from being a Fianna Fáil voter all his life to pledging his vote to Aontú as the only party defending the values he believes in as he sees it.
The Kanturk based candidate has been very emphatic during her campaign that she feels the voters are hungry for change and are telling her as she goes from doorstep to doorstep that they’re not voting for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael this time.
Whether this translates into a vote for the pro-life Aontú party led by former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín, that’s another question.
Over in Cork East, the candidates are also active on the social media trail with incumbent TDs Pat Buckley(SF) and
Kevin O’Keeffe of FF being very active along with challenger Pa O’Driscoll of Fine Gael.
In the Fine Gael candidate’s latest video, he’s securing the endorsement of Noelly Mc – Councillor Noel McCarthy to you and me – of Fermoy who’s urging a hometown vote for the St Colman’s Park resident so the town has a voice in the Dáil.
Not so happy with Pa O’Driscoll is the commuter on the road near Midleton who spotted a trailer bearing a banner urging support for O’Driscoll in a lay-by normally used by trucks and, what’s worse, with the hitch facing towards the road in a way which the poster thought might be dangerous.
In fairness, there’s very little in the way of negative commentary on these sites.
Most people are liking and sharing and posting an encouraging word rather than getting stuck into debate with the candidates.
There’s no sign of negative ‘attack ads’ or fake news...yet.