On the canvass:From a distance, Cllr Mary White looks nice - a nice, middle-aged, middle-class woman in a nice white shirt and jacket, who runs a nice, successful bookselling business with her husband. Kathy Sheridanwith Mary White
Look closer, and "nice" hardly covers it. A Green candidate managing to mount a serious threat in what was Fianna Fáil's most successful vote management whizz (50 per cent of the vote, three out of four possible seats) last time out? In a constituency that has never elected a woman to the Dáil.
A hint of that steely spine was evident in the centre of Kilkenny city, when a woman strode up to her, gripped her hand and declared: "I totally admire you for standing up to the thugs".
Although White lives up Mount Leinster, four miles from the nearest village, her home has been a three-time target recently. First, a pile of tyres was burned in her gateway. Next, a gas cylinder, placed in a stack of tyres, exploded in the early hours. On the third occasion, a car was wedged between her gate-posts and set alight.
"It was certainly premeditated", she says about the most recent attack. "Given our location, whoever did it had to have a getaway car arranged."
Far from being frightened off, she says the attacks have made her "more determined. . . They only re-reinforce my mandate from local people to pursue issues that concern them, and those issues would include anti-social behaviour."
In a sunny city packed with tourists from south Wales to North Carolina, it can be difficult to sort the voters from the visitors. But often enough, it's the voters who find her and the more determined ones are middle-aged women who talk meaningfully about "needing a change".
A woman who has been living in England for 45 years says she is "definitely" voting Green. Why? "Because of the ozone layer and things like that".
"I feel you're intelligent", says another. "There are a few here who can't put two words together".
A third says she'll vote for White "for no other reason that we've never had a woman". The next will not commit herself but merely says: "I'll tell you one thing , I'm definitely not voting for Fianna Fáil".
A mild-looking, trainee nurse approaches, smiling broadly, and thanks White for turning up last week - "and with a big banner too" - at a demonstration by redundant employees of the Comerama company.
"We were promised extra redundancy payments by Mary Harney but it never came. So I've two bullets for Ms Harney: one for that, and the second for what she's doing to the nurses".
Amid the rushing lunchhour crowd, a young man changes track and comes up to wish her luck. She urges him to "rock the vote".
She is confident, and with reason, if the local polls are any guide. They suggest that she's in the running for the fourth seat out of five. She has covered the entire constituency twice since 2002 when she got 5,000 numbers ones. "Back then, a couple of transfers would have seen me through. . . But I have a great feeling now that we're going to see a change in this constituency".
In Kilkenny, the main gripes are about rampant development without the necessary water and sewerage infrastructure. "At Purcell's Inch [ treatment plant], there have been huge spills into the river Nore and terrible odours. . . Developers have been told there can be no more building in the city unless people have a private water supply. Where was the planning by either the Government or local authority?"
As for Co Carlow, the "poor relation" of the constituency, it's about water, transport, jobs. The Ballyloo reservoir is still recovering from a cryptosporidium outbreak in 2005. To the 6,000 commuters who leave the county every day, chafing under a poor train service, she's a familiar figure at the railway station with her questionnaires.
She is bursting with ideas for a town wounded by job losses. Buoyed by the kind of voter who comes up to her asking about grants for solar panels and energy-efficient buildings, (he also want to keep Kilkenny army barracks open, which she enthusiastically supports), she talks about her plan to turn Ireland's "second smallest county into the giant of the renewables sector". The national polls suggest that the Greens have plateaued.
She doesn't buy it. "Being Green is mainstream now. There's no going back."