On the campaign trail: Fishing for floating voters in Mullagh

Mullagh on a sleepy Wednesday afternoon, hats and gloves weather. But, while the air was cold, the reception for Sinn Féin, Pauline Tully, was warm among those canvassed.

The biggest problem, though, was finding people TO canvass. We met opposite the hotel, where a crowd of maybe 10 party activists had gathered and greeted us cheerily. Notably, the window of Farrell’s pub displayed a Shane P. O’Reilly poster, as did a jeep nearby, a reminder that this is the Independent Ireland candidate’s home turf.

The Main Street was quiet and several properties were clearly vacant, a striking situation considering the ongoing housing crisis. It was noon and other doors went unanswered, perhaps predictably.

For a few minutes, this election novice wondered if we’d get talking to anyone at all. A lady walking down the street carrying two toy tractors hadn’t time to chat. “I’m no good to you, my vote is in Moynalty,” she said.

In a shop, one man, who did not wish to be named, said he “might” give his number one vote to Sinn Féin for the first time.

He had grave reservations about immigration and housing in Ireland, citing an example from a recent visit to Maynooth when he witnessed a large influx of foreign nationals.

“Bus after bus after bus of men only. What frightened me was the amount of men coming and they were all clean-shaven, they were well looked after, put it that way. That worries me.

“We need people who are going to add to society, I’m all for giving people a chance,” he said.

He mentioned some “great people” who have arrived in Ireland but reckoned “the elephant in the room that’s not spoken about is that the housing crisis is getting worse”.

“The same parties have been in power for 12 or 14 years, things haven’t changed… Sinn Fein deserve a chance on the basis of that alone.”

Deputy Tully was empathetic in her response. Immigration, she told us as we made our way down the street, is a major issue, with a cohort of voters believing that new arrivals have been handed things they themselves don’t get.

“The main thing would be the medical card,” she explained.

“Now the threshold for the medical card would be extremely low, I feel sorry for people who are applying and are under pressure, maybe pensioners, but because their income is slightly over the threshold – maybe they have a private pension as well – they don’t qualify. And then they saw people coming in…

“I don’t want to just target one group but the Ukrainian people came in here and they were given everything without question, they were given social welfare payments and given the medical card and they should have been means tested the same as everybody else.”

While there were genuine cases, she said, “we also know there were people coming in from areas of Ukraine who were not hit by the war, some of them quite wealthy and some of them still working a job, they could work from here, they were still claiming the payments. That’s wrong...

Those people should have been told to go back to Ukraine. Let us offer the support and help to the people who genuinely need it. And I’m not blaming the Ukrainian people. The government offered them everything and they took it, there was no thought put into it.”

She relayed a story of a friend in Switzerland overhearing Ukrainians, after the supports were lessened, saying “sure let’s go to Ireland now, sure the supports are far better”.

“I’ve heard people who work in a bank say ‘we’ve seen what’s in their bank accounts’ and they said they wouldn’t have it themselves. As I said, I don’t want to tarnish them all.”

At one door, a sign warned against “junk mail”, “flyers”, “menus” and so on being deposited in their letter box.

“If it just says ‘no junk mail’, we usually put it in because we don’t consider this junk. But that one is being a bit more specific,” Pauline commented smilingly - and not unreasonably.

We moved on. An elderly lady answered the door in her dressing gown.

“Sorry, I’m not dressed. It’s very cold… Please God I’ll be out (to vote), I’ll get some of them to bring me down. Where is it?”

At the next, a lady from Meath, who voted for Helen McEntee last time, posed some questions in an interesting and polite exchange.

“I don’t know if you’ve made up your mind,” began Pauline.

“I haven’t yet, no… I’ve never voted for Sinn Féin.”

“You might consider it this time?”

“Well… yes, I’m open to everyone this time.”

She would like, she said, to see “less waste of money".

“There has been a lot of waste,” agreed the Deputy.

“There is a lot of waste, no matter who’s in,” countered the resident.

“We’ve never had the opportunity to lead the government. It’s always been either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, either separately or together. We’d love to have the opportunity and we’re asking people to give us a chance.”

The HSE and health service are “hugely wasteful”, Pauline suggested.

“It’s the management. You have Tús as well, what used to be Fás. What would you do differently with them… I’m just wondering why people would be on that continuously for years,” replied the resident.

“They’re not meant to be… the reason for it is to get people back into employment… You couldn’t have people on those continuously.

“Yeah, but they are” and “Yeah, but why are they getting paid?” were among the ripostes.

“Well, I suppose you can’t let people starve either but we’ve got loads of employment in this country and there’s loads of positions. I’ve had hotel people tell me they can’t get workers.”

“No, but nobody wants to do that kind of work.”

“I’d rather work than not,” says Tully.

Do you think SF now have changed around a bit, she is asked.

“You change a certain amount with the times and different issues coming up. I feel we are more ready for government now than we ever were.”

Pauline said she is a spokesperson for disability and carers and how it is a comprehensive part of Sinn Féin’s manifesto; one of the plans is to get more disabled people into the workforce.

“That’s a great idea… but what about the big issues because I have noticed over the years that Sinn Féin says no to everything.”

“We have tried to be very constructive in the Dáil…”

And so it went. Leaving, the impression is that the local woman is on the fence.

Later a man – warm of himself, as they say - answers the door bare-chested.

“That’s sound, no problem, okey doke,” he says with a big smile, accepting a leaflet.

Our last port of call was with a 67-year-old Englishman named William Stanworth, who moved to the area 25 years ago with his late partner John.

He immediately states that he will be voting for Sinn Féin for the first time, before inviting us into his home.

William’s particularly critical of hospital services. He says he left A&E in October because he had been waiting so long to be seen. However, he had a heart attack the following week and ended up in the Mater Hospital, where he had stents put in.

“I was so mad… they could have told me I was liable to have a heart attack.”

“You’re obviously feeling better now, you’re looking great anyway,” replies Pauline.

“I am but I’m on the tablets now for life, I wasn’t on any tablets before that. Blood thinners, beta blockers, cholesterol tablets…”

His partner passed away in April, 2022, and William was not happy with the care he received either.

His well-appointed house was provided by St Kilian’s Housing Association and costs considerably less than his previous rental property in Virginia, he said. A non-driver, he travels to appointments on the bus.

“The new bus service, it’s brilliant, a local link that runs seven times a day. It goes to Virginia, Ballyduff, Crosskeys and Cavan and then back again, it’s brilliant.”

He is voting for Sinn Féin, he explained, because he feels the current government is doing a bad job.

“Let them have a go, they can’t make it any worse than it is… And also, I notice you are really pro-gay, more than any of the other parties.”

Originally from, “you’d never have heard of it, a place called Milton Keynes”, Cavan is home now and he said he is “very lucky” to have his current house, having lived in Cross before Virginia.

“I nearly voted for Sinn Féin the last time and someone said ‘who you voting for?’, I said Sinn Féin and they said ‘Don’t you dare speak to me’. I said ‘why, for f’s sake, all that’s in the past, give them a chance, they can’t do any worse, surely to God they can’t’.

Tully listened to his concerns and assured him her party would do better.

“That’s what we’re saying, give us a chance, we have the policies and we have the people and we believe we can do a better job.”

And at that, we’re away, heater turned to max, as the Sinn Féin canvas rolls on to Virginia and, by coincidence, arrives at the Celt’s door about an hour later. But, by then, we were well versed anyway.