Labour Party’s Donegal South West candidate keen to make a local connection on campaign trail
JUST BEFORE Frank McBrearty jnr’s arrival in Dungloe, a Fianna Fáil jeep flashes through the town, and then disappears. The rain that has been falling relentlessly for the previous hour suddenly stops.
Nothing gets in the way of the burly 41-year-old Labour councillor, who is the party’s standard-bearer in the Donegal South West byelection. People may decide to like him or otherwise, but he is impossible to ignore.
McBrearty first came to public notice as the innocent victim of a trumped-up murder charge in 1996. This led to the establishment of the Morris tribunal and startling revelations of Garda corruption. McBrearty eventually received €1.5 million in compensation from the State.
He was elected to Donegal County Council for the first time last year. Part of the reason he joined Labour was the forthright stance senior party figures took in relation to his ordeal.
Party leader Eamon Gilmore is on hand to promote the candidate, along with deputies Joe Costello, Emmet Stagg and Jack Wall, former lord mayor of Dublin Emer Costello and Donegal councillor Jimmy Harte, son of former Fine Gael TD Paddy Harte.
McBrearty’s message is simple and he repeats it at every possible opportunity.
“My granny is from Burtonport,” he says, a reference to the nearby fishing village. “My mother has a house over there.”
The Labour campervan is blaring out a Tracy Chapman song about making a revolution but the candidate is more interested in making a local connection.
There is a flash of recognition: “Your granny was a great woman for bingo.”
The Labour team goes into every commercial outlet on the main street except the bookmakers. Gilmore is different from Enda Kenny, who makes a point of placing a bet on the local Fine Gael candidate. But subsequent inquiries reveal no such wagers are being accepted anyway.
Like his Sinn Féin counterpart, Pearse Doherty, McBrearty is Glasgow-born and came to Donegal with his family at an early age. “I’ve educated myself in my own struggles against the State and it’s been invaluable,” he says.
He’s not a man to mince his words and had to begin the campaign with an apology for using “inappropriate language” to the county manager whom he had told in a moment of impatience to “eff off”.
A woman voter complains about her medication bills. Despite the weather, there are some visitors in town, such as Katie from Tyrone, but it’s “Mary from Dungloe” the canvassers need to meet.
The Labour leader is getting good reviews from members of the public following his interview on The Late Late Show. In a conversation in Irish with a woman from Gweedore, Gilmore assures her Labour in government would leave the State pension alone.
“My granny was a native Irish speaker, but I’m not,” says McBrearty. “Granny was from Burtonport.” Labour’s candidate in 2007, Seamus Rodgers, has turned up to give a hand. He received 1,111 first preferences, or just below 3 per cent, last time, but McBrearty should improve on that, given his high profile and Labour’s current popularity.
His transfers could be crucial, but he says: “I’m fighting this campaign to win it and I want people to vote Frank McBrearty number one. The people of Donegal know what my capabilities are. I would advise people not to vote for Fianna Fáil because we have to give a message that we need to get this Government out.”
So for their other preferences, they should vote for any other Opposition candidates of their choice? “Oh yes, most definitely.” Listening to the people of Dungloe lamenting the state of the town’s economy, he says, “That’s why we need a voice in Dáil Éireann to fight for us.”