ItÕs nothing personal Ð as Labour arrive in Enda KennyÕs back yard

A few eyebrows must have been raised in Fine Gael circles in Mayo at the weekend – for this is ‘true blue country’ but the Labour Party arrived in force in Enda Kenny’s back yard.

On the platform they had a number of candidates that Labour quietly fancy for any number of western constituencies, but this is countryside that FG have won from FF in recent years – three seats out of five in Mayo, two out of four in Galway East, two out of three in Roscommon-South Leitrim, with the only blot on the landscape being one out of five in Galway West.

Yet, here were Labour arriving in Kenny’s Castlebar . . . why, they even have a candidate who Labour believe could challenge in a big way for a seat in the already crowded Mayo five-seater where Kenny is the top dog.

The word is that up to 500 delegates were at the Labour Saturday think-in on the west session in Castlebar, with the pride-of-place in the morning session being given to former Mayo TD Dr Jerry Cowley, a convert to Labour and a man whose chances cannot be ruled out, even in a five-seater where Fine Gael have utterly ruled the roost since the last General Election.

Let’s not forget that Cowley was the first elected of the five TDs in Mayo in the General Election of 2002, getting more than 8,000 first preferences as an Independent in what has to have been recognition of his remarkable record of work on behalf of the elderly, the sick, and the returned emigrants who were in need of housing, or respite care. 

Cowley’s first preference total fell back to over 5,000 in the 2009 General Election and he was squeezed out by an all-conquering FG ticket led by Kenny and Michael Ring. Fine Gael gained a seat when John O’Mahony’s name (6,800 first preferences) was added to those of Kenny (14,000 first preferences) and Ring (11,400 first preferences) in the Dáil.

Fine Gael took the first three seats with Kenny triumphing as the potential Mayo Taoiseach and the FG vote rising by 15%. The last two seats went to Dara Calleary (FF – 7,200 first preferences) and Beverley Cooper-Flynn, who was then Independent and polled 6,700 first preferences and is now back in the FF fold.

The weekend session in Castlebar saw Cowley very much centre-stage at the crucial Saturday morning session on health. Publicly, of course, the Labour target in Mayo has to be one of the FF seats if the Fianna Fáil vote is under pressure.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.