He sent a message on Facebook: ‘Let’s join a loser’s club’
SF candidate Lynn Boylan discusses life with Eoin Ó Broin and her hopes for the Dublin Bay South by-election
IT DOESN’T take long before it becomes apparent why Lynn Boylan, Sinn Féin’s great hope to take Eoghan Murphy’s seat in the upcoming by-election, chose the small but beautifully formed St Patrick’s Park near St Patrick’s Cathedral for our interview.
Initially, I suspected that the park, smack dab in the middle of old Dublin, reflected the party’s working-class hinterland, a counterpoint to the swish boulevards of Ballsbridge or Sandymount with which affluent Dublin Bay South is mostly associated.
But that was only part of the reason. ‘I spent my early years there in the J Blocks,’ smiles Lynn, waving towards the handsome redbrick Iveagh Trust buildings, originally built for Guinness workers. ‘My father grew up in Kevin Street, which is nearby. He was raised by his mother because his dad died when he was a child.’
As she chats about her mother, who grew up off Clanbrassil Street and worked in the Winstanley shoe factory, and her dad, who trained as a butcher and was in and out of work during the 1980s recession until settling finally at Dublin Bus, her
‘This is a David and Goliath battle in many respects’
knack for neatly turning the personal into the political becomes evident.
‘The point I always make is that even though my mother was a housewife and my parents had one income, they could still afford to buy a house in Kilnamanagh when I was small, which is something they could not do today.’
No indeed. Mr and Mrs Boylan would be languishing for years on a waiting list for social housing if they were starting out now, while if they were lucky enough to pull in a multiple of the average industrial wage, they’d be held to ransom by a rapacious housing market and bloodsucking investment funds.
As the country emerges from the pandemic, the housing crisis has recovered its position as the key political and social issue of our time. As such, Sinn Féin is determined to make it the burning issue of the by-election, a slice of common ground between it and a constituency that is almost preternaturally hostile to its brand of United Ireland and socialist ideology.
‘This is a David and Goliath battle in many respects. I think everyone knows that Dublin Bay South is considered a Fine Gael stronghold but what we are saying to voters is that this is a byelection, not a general election. That you have an option if you want to send a message to the Government about how unhappy you are with the way things are,’ says Lynn, 44.
But given the giant-sized step between frustration with mainstream parties and actually voting for Sinn Féin, have many people on the doorsteps said, ‘Look, I’d love to give the Government a wake-up call, but my memories of the Troubles and sectarian violence are just too raw to vote for Sinn Féin?’ ‘No,’ says Lynn firmly. ‘I haven’t had that reaction at all.’
She is evasive about the canvass, refusing to say whether she’s focussing on working-class areas around Pearse
Street or courting the denizens of Shrewsbury Road. If she triumphs on July 8, Sinn Féin will hold two seats in a five-seater, with little likelihood perhaps of hanging onto both come the next general election. How would she feel if she had to add another electoral defeat to her crashing out of the European elections in 2019 when Sinn Féin suffered a wipeout and both she and Liadh Ní Riada lost seats?
‘Well, let’s just win this seat first,’ says Lynn, echoing the interjection of her handler, Luke, who worked for years on the Sun newspaper before hitching his star to Sinn Féin.
Lynn is such an old pro at holding the party line on everything from Northern Ireland to Mary Lou’s leadership that I wonder why she needs an overseer.
But we are barely 15 minutes into the interview before Luke announces that we have ten more minutes, adding, as if he was doing me a fantastic favour, that he wants to make sure I have enough time for my questions. After being given the runaround by another party official who cancelled our interview at the last minute last week, just as the row about party activists posing as independent pollsters broke, I would have expected not to be rushed on this occasion.
But I don’t suppose you get to ruthlessly exploit voter disenchantment with the political establishment to your advantage and rise in the polls, despite a complete absence of a track record in power, by not placing social niceties between your crosshairs.
For there are two Lynn Boylans; there’s the Lynn who is polite but wary and, like
‘We’re not married. People make that mistake all the time’
her leader, seems very rehearsed on policy matters, exuding a sort of teacherknows-best authority.
And there’s the Lynn who freely chats about her childhood and laughs about her relationship with Eoin Ó Broin, the party’s polltopper in Dublin Mid-West and its trenchant spokesman on housing. ‘We’re not married,’ she practically squeals when I mistakenly refer to him as her husband. ‘People make that mistake all the time.’ They have been an item for more than a decade so why don’t they get hitched? ‘I don’t like weddings,’ laughs Lynn. ‘We are totally content the way we are.’
The couple rent a charming stone cottage in Clondalkin where, as anyone who dips into their Instagram accounts knows, they regularly cook mouth
watering feasts. ‘Eoin is more into cooking fish and offal, whereas I cook Sri Lankan dishes and Indian. And I love baking bread.’
If romance was a policy issue, Lynn and Eoin would top the polls. She still gushes at the mention of his name, volunteering that they met on Facebook after she put in a dismal performance in the 2009 local elections.
‘I think we both maybe came bottom of the poll, Eoin in Dún Laoghaire and me in Killarney. He sent me a Facebook message saying we should form a losers’ club. I had only set up the Facebook account for the election so I didn’t see his message for about six months, but I contacted him then and we met in Wagamama for lunch on January 6, 2010, which is Eoin’s birthday.’
Cupid struck immediately and a year later the lovebirds set up home. Even though they could discuss politics from morning to night, it never gets tedious she insists.
‘Eoin is passionate about housing, and I am passionate about the environment, so we learn from each other. This might make us sound dull, but we just cook and talk about politics, and we have my rescue dog Cooper.’
But just as I feel that if I play my cards right, I might land an invite to one of Eoin’s signature suppers, she sharply pulls up the drawbridge again.
We are chatting about how their relationship began after she lost her job in the education centre of Killarney National Park and was forced to move back in with her parents in her midthirties. I remark how her renting out her tiny house in Kerry became an issue. ‘I didn’t realise it was a controversy,’ she fires back, while Luke nods vigorously from his corner. Well, OK, but has surprise been expressed at the doorsteps at this ardent advocate for
tenants’ rights and rent freezes being among the landlord class?
‘Not once during this campaign has that been said to me. A lot of people understand completely my situation. You buy a home thinking it’s going to be a place to live in but I was forced to leave it when I lost my job.’
If voters are understanding on that score, then they must surely be agog about Sinn Féin’s opposition to a property tax, given its socialist principles. How does Lynn justify giving a tax break to the owners of trophy homes in Ballsbridge when those constituents of Dublin Bay South who are suffering from patchy public services will suffer even more if the annual property tax take of around half a billion euro is lost to the public purse?
Lynn trots out the familiar reasons that make the property tax ‘not fit for purpose’ – it takes no account of negative equity or ability to pay and it penalises those who can’t pay it.
‘We believe that high net worth individuals should pay more tax in other ways – through a tax on earnings over €100,000 and a wealth tax,’ she says.
Her unswerving convictions are almost hard to credit given how only two years ago Clare Daly’s successful campaign for Europe split the left-wing vote in Dublin, and cost Lynn her seat, forcing her to take stock.
At the time she said she would take a break for her ‘own mental health’ but she plays it down today.
‘Naturally, I was bruised. Anyone in my position would have been shocked. I decided to take time out and study for a Masters in Climate Change in DCU.’
Did the brutality of social media and the merciless political arena make her defeat harder to bear? Lynn swats that away to deliver a mini lecture on how politicians are incredibly well paid and supported enough to deal with public anger over austerity and other cuts.
Like many of her replies, it only tangentially addresses the question but Luke is on his feet, and so is Lynn. We have now run out of time, it appears; they have an engagement in Rathmines.
A candidate’s job is never done.
‘It might sound dull but we just cook and talk about politics’