Sinn Fein's mythical machine

Date: 14th May '02

Name: article from RM Irish news round up

Analysis: Sinn Fein's mythical machine

---------------------------------------------------------------
Another polls in Kerry has indicated that Martin Ferris will take
a seat in Kerry North. Ferris is understandably reluctant to put
too much faith in polls, but he is confident of success
nonetheless. In the weeks before the poll, MICK DERRIG spent
time in the constituency. This is his report. ---------------------------------------------------------------

When I had shadowed Pat Doherty on his victorious election
campaign in West Tyrone much was made from the perspective of
Dublin newsrooms that the contest was between the "magic and the
machine". Readers were regaled with stuff like "there is a whiff
of magic about West Tyrone and that magic is Brid Rogers".

Doherty won and the triumph that appalled Dublin 4 was put down
to the crushing effectiveness of the "Sinn Fein machine".

My experience in Tralee and the rest of Kerry North found no
sinister machine, only as dedicated a collection of working class
people as it would be possible to find within these islands,
working for a shared political goal.

From Director of Publicity Donal Cusack who worked through
personal bereavements and Garda arrest, to Gerry Riordan in the
shop whose mobile phone plays 'Some say the Divil is dead' to
organiser Risteard O Fuarain, I found not one Libyan trained
canvasser.

Nor was this Belfast Sinn Fein put into crates and shipped south.
With the exception of Paul Henry from South Derry, this was a
completely Kerry operation.

Gerry told me proudly - with mock vainglory - that he was
Director of Canvassing; actually there were days when he thought
he might be Director of feckin' everything!

Every night at 6.30pm, the Sinn Fein office in Moyderwell was
like a Japanese subway carriage. Young and old, men and women,
lined up for their clipboards. Gerry, a Sinn Fein member for 30
years, told me that his mobile phone was on 24 hours a day.

Inured to years of proscription and censorship, the republican
cottage industry that gets the message out was in full swing by
the time I arrived in Tralee. Gerry showed me newsletters that
were going through every door in the constituency. People were up
at 6am through till 9am posting them through letterboxes every
morning until the entire constituency was done. There was a
general newsletter; one for health, women, and the list went on.

The "machine" is actually a group of people bound together by an
idea that is at the core of republicanism's irreducible
dissidence on this island. That is a belief that somehow,
someday, things can be different on this island for working class
people. No sleaze, no poverty and no second class Taigs in the
North.

The thing that seemed to be galvanising these people canvassing
St Brendan's Park on a beautiful night wasn't the Garvaghy Road,
but specifically southern issues. For sure, their worldview on
the national question was a given, but the reasons they gave for
knocking on doors for Martin Ferris were thoroughly local. There
was far more talk about bribes in the South than pipe bombs in
the North.

Martin Ferris's past is transparent in Tralee and it didn't seem
to bother many people. This estate, I was reminded, was solid
Dick Spring country. I got the same feeling that I was witnessing
a seismic political shift as I did when I followed behind Pat
Doherty in rock solid SDLP country in a leafy Omagh cul de sac to
witness Brid Rogers' vote disintegrate and defect.

The constituency, of course, isn't only Tralee.

The day I went to Listowel I was to meet up with Martin Ferris
and speak to him for the third time in as many weeks. While I was
waiting for him, I spent half a day around the Sinn Fein nerve
centre in Listowel.

I was looked after by Tom Harrington, in all probability a '40s
man by the look of him - another generation hardened by state
repression. But for the political parties who are in something
close to an alliance against Sinn Fein, perhaps the most worrying
aspect is the extent to which the republicans have youth on their
side.

I also interviewed Tina O'Shea. Another stalwart of the nightly
canvassing effort, this Presentation girl is already being
headhunted to do interior design work. She has her sights fixed
firmly on a degree to qualify her in this field. Her portfolio is
already attracting attention. Her dad, an ex-hospital porter, is
a Sinn Fein activist and is currently a youth worker in the town.

Sinn Fein in Kerry is managed by Risteard O Fuarain. A
30-year-old newly married native of Causeway, this graduate
quality engineer is in overall charge of Sinn Fein's growth in
the entire county. His place in the scheme of things is to
"pretend that no election is taking place, just to work away
recruiting, building the party and so on".

His first experience of Sinn Fein testing itself at the polls in
North Kerry came in the 1997 Dail election. He was sceptical
about the party's chances. "I thought we would get a respectable
4,000 number ones and that would give us a chance to build for
the future," he said. In fact, Sinn Fein got 5,691 number ones.
"This time the campaign is much more intense - there are greater
expectations."

Risteard himself ran for the county council in 1999 in the
Listowel electoral area. At the time, he was working for a
company in Shannon and every night, he would drive the 180-mile
round trip to canvass the area and then return to do another
day's work. He polled 715 number ones and will stand next time.
His unpaid work for the community doesn't end with being a
republican. He is a member of the Ballyheigue Inshore Rescue
Service, driving a fast rescue boat. Somehow the Celtic Tiger Me!
Me! Me! phenomenon passed this guy by. His community, you feel,
are the better for it.

Unpaid work, a sense of community, helping others, volunteering
to take part in rescue operations, this is the sort of young man
that builds the stable, safe communities that we all want to live
in. Sadly, those entrusted with public safety don't view Risteard
in that way. In his own quiet, reserved, completely convincing
way, he recounted a litany of episodes of petty garda harassment
- usually around driving.

Donal Cusack, Martin's Director of Publicity (always a poisoned
chalice at any level of Sinn Fein), said there was evidence of an
attempt to drown the Sinn Fein campaign in blank cheque largesse
over the past few months. Estimates vary between O70 million and
O100 million that the government has diverted into Kerry North,
but the message is clear. They will spend heavily to prevent a
Sinn Fein TD.

Donal was quite clear that both the carrot and the threat of the
stick has been used to soften up an electorate that is clearly
considering giving Sinn Fein one of the three seats. For the Sinn
Fein activists themselves, the carrot has been conspicuous by its
absence. Only the stick seems to be in evidence. But there is a
confidence and expectation about that no amount of petty
harassment can blunt, the energetic canvass underway on the
highways and byways is reminiscent of this writer's best memories
of the West Tyrone campaign.

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