The late US House of Representatives speaker Tip O’Neill’s famous dictum that “all politics is local” has always had a powerful resonance in rural Ireland. If you don’t mind your parish pump, you will be punished by your community.
In 1987, Labour leader Dick Spring had been tánaiste in an outgoing coalition government and yet limped into the last seat with a margin of only four votes to spare. He never repeated that mistake again and become more attentive to the needs of his constituents.
Gráinne Seoige caused a stir when she announced she would be contesting Fianna Fáil’s Galway West selection convention in September. A household name, a well-known national broadcaster and now a bona fide celebrity candidate.
The Irish Times made an early bid for an interview with Seoige and a provisional arrangement was made for September 24th. It was put back, initially to early October and then to the middle of this month. It still hasn’t happened.
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Seoige commands attention, even though it has been more than a decade since she was at the summit of Irish broadcasting, when she had her own afternoon show on RTÉ.
The critical tests of her electability, however, will not be colour spreads in national broadsheets or on the strength of her name. She has to show she is familiar with O’Neill’s mantra, specifically in her native Connemara.
The first big test of Seoige’s mettle in that regard occurred last Tuesday on Raidió na Gaeltachta’s Adhmhaidin. Presenter Gormfhlaith Ní Thuairisg grilled her about the Government’s budget allocation of €107 million to the State’s Gaeltacht regions and the Irish language, which has been subject to loud local criticism.
In effortless Connemara Irish, Seoige defended it to the hilt, saying that €107 million was a huge amount of money.
When it was put to her that her party colleague Éamon Ó Cuív – the person whose shoes she is aiming to fill – had expressed acute disappointment at the allocation, she replied that their views differed on the matter. It was an important interview and one which she survived, but not unscathed.
Seoige (50), is from Cnoc, a small Irish-speaking community a few kilometres west of An Spidéal. The eldest of four children, she has a sister and two brothers. She has a son, Conall (now 30) who was born while she was a student at the University of Galway. After completing a postgraduate course in broadcasting, Seoige was the main newscaster when Telifís na Gaeilge was launched in 1998.
Subsequently she worked as a news broadcaster for TV3, Sky News Ireland and ITV before moving to RTÉ to co-present the Seoige show along with her younger sister, Síle. The show ended after three seasons. Her appearances on RTÉ became less frequent – she hosted the monthly Crimecall programme for a number of years. She has maintained a presence on social media platforms.
She was married to former TV3 sports broadcaster Stephen Cullinane but the couple divorced in 2010. She married a former South African rugby coach, Leon Jordan, in 2019. Three years previously they had moved to South Africa where she had set up a diamond business. The couple returned to live in Ireland after the Covid pandemic.
While she was born and raised in the Gaeltacht and has strong family connections from An Spidéal to Ros Muc she has lived outside of Connemara for most of her working life and some would say she no longer has that connection with the constituency, or to the language, that her Fianna Fáil running mate, long-serving city councillor John Connolly (another native speaker), has.
“The thing that struck me about her RnaG interview is that Ó Cuív would never have defended the budget allocation,” said one close observer of Galway politics. “He has always had one foot in Fianna Fáil and the other foot in the constituency.
“Perhaps, being new, she was being loyal and toeing the party line. She needs to learn she also has to be loyal to the constituency.”
[ Gráinne Seoige has swapped the Love Teach for Politics Island. Who will be next?Opens in new window ]
A former colleague in Irish-speaking media said Seoige has many attributes as a communicator but asked, would they be enough?
“I just can’t see her doing what Ó Cuiv has done, going to the sheep marts in Maam Cross, to the many local meetings, and to all the matches and pony shows.”
“Seoige is one of two parachute candidates” who will be standing in the general election for Fianna Fáil. The other, journalist and newscaster Alison Comyn, was added to the Fianna Fáil ticket in Louth.
The party’s decision to run two candidates with profile but no experience in politics may well have been inspired by the success of former TV presenter Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, who took a seat in Ireland South in June’s European elections.
Those elections were a celebrity-rich environment, with former Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh securing re-election, former RTÉ correspondent Ciarán Mullooly taking a seat and Niall Boylan, presenter of a late-night no-holds-barred radio show, putting in a respectable showing.
And then there was jockey Nina Carberry, who did no meaningful or in-depth interviews during the campaign but was elected in the Midlands-North-West constituency largely on the back of her name.
Comyn says she chuckles when she hears herself described as “a celebrity candidate”. Yes, she has been a broadcaster for Sky News, RTÉ, BBC and UTV, Comyn says, but she is firmly ensconced in her native Drogheda.
“I think there’s a huge difference between being well known and being a celebrity,” she says. “I am well known in the area. I’ve been a hard-working journalist for 30 years, so a lot of it might have been on the telly, but I don’t think I swagger along any red carpets.
“I have covered hundreds and hundreds of county council meetings, Drogheda Borough Council meetings, joint policing committee meetings. There’s nothing glamorous about those.”
Comyn insists she was not dropped in, saying Fianna Fáil had no candidate in Drogheda, unlike the north of the county, where Senator Erin McGreehan is running.
“It has happened a few times that a journalist will move to politics and you are really pinning your colours to a mast,” she says. “And I was always very proud to have been considered impartial. The fact that people don’t know what your politics are means that you’re doing your job correctly as a journalist.”
Comyn felt the time was right. From a fifth-generation Drogheda family, she felt the town was slipping behind while still expanding. She wants it to be a city in its own right, not just a satellite of Dublin or Dundalk. The other motivating factor was that Drogheda has not had a Fianna Fáil TD elected for 70 years.
“So now it’s tricky. I’ve had to take unpaid leave from my position. You can’t, obviously, be a journalist and run as a candidate. I think it’s a risk well worth taking. I’m embedded in the community so it does feel like a bit of a natural transition,” she says
Traditionally, Irish celebrity candidates have tended to come from the GAA world. In 2010, journalist Conor McMorrow wrote a book on GAA stars who became TDs and was able to pick a full team of 15, with a few subs to boot.
They included a 1916 hero, Austin Stack (Kerry football legend); a taoiseach, Jack Lynch (who won six All-Ireland medals for Cork in hurling and football); a tánaiste, John Wilson (a member of the Cavan 1947 and 1948 All-Ireland winning sides); and numerous ministers, including Jimmy Deenihan, who won five All-Ireland medals with Kerry.
The phenomenon continues. Mayo TD and Minister of State Alan Dillon is a former Mayo intercounty star. Fine Gael’s candidate in Kerry, Billy O’Shea, is also a well-known former county player.
The other big source of “names” has been broadcasting.
EU commissioner Mairéad McGuinness was a TV presenter before her election in 2004. The RTÉ journalist George Lee won a byelection in Dublin South by a landslide in 2009 for Fine Gael, but was naive in his expectations as to what he could achieve. Within a year, he had resigned, complaining that Fine Gael had used him only as a “show pony”.
Parachute candidates have tended to do better in European elections. As second-tier elections and with sprawling constituencies, national name recognition is more important. It doesn’t always work.
Orla Guerin, then an RTÉ journalist, failed to be elected for the Dublin constituency in the 1990s. A few very prominent former GAA players – Barney Rock (Dublin), Graham Geraghty (Meath) and the legendary Mick O’Connell (Kerry) failed in their bids for the Dáil.
And what about Gráinne Seoige? A colleague who worked with her in the past says: “She’s tough but if she was a man that quality would be admired.
“In my experience, she is smart, she is focused and there’s no denying she is interested in politics. She also likes to be in the limelight. I would not discount her at all. She is a hard worker. We have had all sorts in the Dáil. If she gets elected, she could surprise you at how good she may be.”
Timing is everything when it comes to general elections
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