All guns blazing as Sheehan aims to take advantage of Dáil shot
MICHAEL SHEEHAN TALKS OF DOING THINGS THE HARD WAY, HIS AMERICAN INFLUENCES AND LIFE AS A GAY MAN IN THE ROUGH AND TUMBLE WORLD OF POLITICS.
IF ambition and enthusiasm translated directly to votes, then Fianna Fáil’s Michael Sheehan would no doubt top the poll. Shortly after sitting down with him, it becomes evident that this man lives for the cut and thrust of politics. As he races through the main points of his comprehensive 32 page manifesto, giving a brief outline of some of the key policies he would pursue should he make it to Leinster House, his passion is evident.
The New Ross native is hopeful that this election could be the culmination of 20 years of work. Having been overlooked on a couple of occasions by the party in the county, he feels that this is a big chance for him to become the voice for South Wexford in particular.
‘I was always determined to fight my way through and drive on from there,’ Michael said.
‘Nothing has ever come easy to me in the political sphere and I’ve always fought tooth and nail for every vote. Not that it’s a new revelation, but a lot of people have always said “oh no, he won’t get elected”. In 1999 they said I wouldn’t get elected. In 2009, they said I wouldn’t get elected. Each and every time they’ve underestimated and always put New Ross down as the underdog. So getting out and about as a first time candidate for the Dáil, the same routine is coming back at me.’
Coming from a family of seven, Michael’s father worked in the canteen in Albatross. His parents were determined to ensure that he got a full education and he ended up going to college in America, where he worked in a bar and restaurant to help pay for his studies.
Michael’s hometown of New Ross has a very famous and well-documented American connection, and it’s a close connection that the Fianna Fáil man feels himself having lived there for seven years after being brought over to study by his aunt and uncle. The US has also had a clear impact in how he goes about politics.
‘I did my primary degree in political science in New York,’ he explained. ‘Then I ended up working for a member of congress who is still there now.
That’s where the very first savvy of politics came into me. I learned the first rule of politics over there, which is a bit different to our politics here. It’s that you go all the time. You’re always on. You have to keep going. It’s highly competitive. That’s been hard-wired into me. You’re going all the time. Other candidates are coming out of the traps. I’ve been out of the traps for a long time. We never stop.’
‘I’ve been working towards this all my life. I don’t intend to let the people down. As somebody who got the break from my parents and my aunt and uncle who, in traditional Irish fashion, sent the money home to bring the lad over, I’m not going to let them down either. There are thousands of working class kids like me who didn’t have the parents with the big bank accounts to get them through. We need to create a society and a county where everyone has a role to play based on their ability and ambitions.’
When he’s not working, Michael says he’s reading and carrying out research in a bid to take his political ambitions that step further. ‘It’s a laugh a minute in my life,’ he smiles. However, one of his hobbies in any downtime he does have has a distinct American flavour too.
‘I have a little project I’ve been working on for the last couple of years called Mustang Sally,’ he reveals. ‘I have a 1965 Ford Mustang that I’m doing up. We’re restoring her at the moment. She had some serious issues with her body and there’s some bodywork that needs to be done and to get to that part we had to take the whole car apart. Hopefully by the middle of this year we’ll have her fully restored.’
However, downtime is not something that Michael says he needs a lot of.
‘I find I don’t need a lot of downtime because I absolutely love this,’ he says firmly. ‘I love what I do. I get to meet so many great people. The energy of it is great.’
While Michael enthusiastically rattles through some of the big plans he has for rural Wexford, as contained in his manifesto, one cause in particular seems close to his heart. A ban on smoky fuels across the county has been something which has generated quite a bit of discussion in the Wexford County Council chamber. Air quality in Enniscorthy in particular is regarded as being dreadfully poor. ‘In Enniscorthy, they’re breathing air fifty times over the recommended limit,’ he said. ‘I’ve never said this to anyone else, but I held my mother’s hand while she was dying. I was the only one in the room. She died, it was smoking related, but she died because she couldn’t breathe. I’m on the board of the COPD the emphysema sufferers in Wexford and I see them struggling so hard.
At different times of the year, they cannot breathe. Simple as.’
This is something he hopes to change with the roll-out of natural gas countywide.
The four candidate strategy for Fianna Fáil in Wexford was considered a risky one. It wasn’t without controversy either. Having previously been selected as the party’s general election candidate, Lisa McDonald was leapfrogged by her old friend Malcolm Byrne to contest the by-election and was left further enraged after Sheehan was also added to the ticket alongside James Browne. It led to McDonald venting her fury, describing the party as a boys club and being ‘male, pale and stale’.
While Michael understands his colleague’s frustrations, it’s not a view he subscribes to.
‘I put my name forward for a convention in 2004 and an addition was made three weeks before polling day. Everything was going fine and I was well on track to take the seat and then at a selection convention in 2015, it was divided in such a way that it made it mathematically impossible for me to come through. The moral of the story is that there are knocks and setbacks in politics that are sometimes out of your control. It really hurts. When you’re working away and at the last minute the whole lot is wiped out and you get a phone-call...I remember getting the call at twenty to four of a Tuesday afternoon. I understand the hurt. I’ve stayed out of it because I know how that feels.’
While Cllr McDonald asked some major questions of the party in relation to its treatment of women, in other ways Fianna Fáil are being labelled progressive. With Michael and Gorey’s Malcolm Byrne on the ticket, half their candidates are gay men. In a game where anything can be used against you, Michael does not feel that his sexuality has hindered his political career in any way. He was married to his husband Edward last year and feels he has always been supported by the party to be exactly who he is.
‘Ever since I got married, the outpouring of support and emotion and even people who I thought may not have been completely supportive, there hasn’t been one negative comment. Would some of my competitors use it against me? Politics is a rough and tumble game, I’m sure it’s been used. Perhaps in years gone by, going into a convention, it would be used against you because you could come across somebody who wouldn’t quite see things your way, like somebody older or someone with devout beliefs. Not nowadays. As people we’ve gone beyond that. At no point have I ever felt that the fact I’m married to another guy was limiting or hindering my career. And if it does, it does.’
‘One thing I’ve held onto dearly from the day I got married was a letter from Micheál Martin. He sent me a hand-written letter to congratulate us and wish us all the best. From that day on, I said “Micheál gets it”. He allowed us to stand up and say “this is who we are” and he played a pivotal role in that. From that day forward, it’s been no issue whatsoever.’
A certain degree of patience is required to maintain a relationship with somebody who is in politics, and Michael says his husband Edward has it in spades. ‘He’s a fantastic guy. He’s absolutely everything I’m not. First of all, he’s good looking,’ he laughs. ‘He’s quiet and shy. He’s everything I’m not and he keeps me on an even keel. He gets it and he knows how much I love it (politics). He and his family are 100% behind me.’
With Sean Connick being the last Wexford TD to hail from the New Ross area, understandably this forms a big part of Michael’s campaign. He believes that the people of his hometown have been neglected and haven’t had a voice since then. ‘People need to feel that there’s somebody up there fighting for them,’ he said. ‘I can tell you now you can walk across New Ross and South Wexford and ask people is there somebody up in the Dáil that they really believe is fighting for them. The answer will be no.’
Producing his snappy fourword summary as he heads for the exit that his focus is on ‘jobs, health, education, investment’, Michael Sheehan is definitely polished. He’s genuinely enthusiastic and is only too willing to pour over the contents of his comprehensive manifesto. Brimming with confidence, he has the air of a man whose time in the sun has finally arrived. Only time will tell.
I FIND I DON’T NEED A LOT OF DOWNTIME BECAUSE I ABSOLUTELY LOVE WHAT I DO. I GET TO MEET SO MANY GREAT PEOPLE