Election 2024

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns on her labours, on and off the political pitch

In an unprecedented situation in Irish politics, the party leader is due to give birth just days before the general election

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns canvassing in Bandon in the Cork South-West constituency on Saturday. Photograph: Andy Gibson
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns canvassing in Bandon in the Cork South-West constituency on Saturday. Photograph: Andy Gibson
Noel Baker in Bandon
Mon Nov 18 2024 - 17:00

As Social Democrats member Conor McHugh approaches Holly Cairns for a hug before an afternoon canvass in Bandon, he inadvertently nails the mood.

“One more week! Well, two more weeks ... you know what I mean,” he says.

For Cairns, it is indeed a unique double-header.

The Social Democrats leader is due to give birth to her daughter next Friday, one week before polling day, when she will seek to retain her seat in the Cork South-West constituency.

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It is a situation without precedent for a party leader in Irish politics.

“There is obviously no template,” she says; it is “unchartered” territory.

“It’s also my first time having a baby,” she says.

Cairns said on Monday that she would miss RTÉ's 10-way leaders’ debate, with deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan standing in.

The mood in her camp is upbeat and the reaction towards Cairns, in her second general election and her first as party leader, is generally positive.

More than once people on the doorsteps and streets of Bandon on Saturday marvel at the mere fact that she’s still out and about looking for votes. More than once she admits: “It’s the worst possible timing.”

Stephanie Murray, who is out with her grandson, Callum, jokes: “You shouldn’t be out at all” when she learns the baby is due so soon.

On a mild and bright afternoon, the sheer number of people canvassing for Cairns – all in the party purple and including Cairns’s partner, Barry Looney – is a signifier of its growth.

When Cairns unexpectedly took the third and final seat in 2020, fending off Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard, she was effectively running a shoestring operation. Her team was all friends and family members.

She remembers knocking on doors with the opening gambit: “Have you heard of the Social Democrats?” Now the team includes recently elected local councillors.

Canvass leader Fiona Cairns (who is married to Holly’s uncle) gees up the two-dozen-strong team beforehand, telling them that the campaign is “an absolute scrap” in the three-seat constituency and every number-one vote counts.

It’s probably indicative of the tightness of the race that other party leaders have been flocking to the area: by the time Cairns winds down her canvass in Bandon, Taoiseach Simon Harris has visited the Fine Gael offices elsewhere in the town, while the previous day, Tánaiste Micheál Martin was with local TD Christopher O’Sullivan in Clonakilty, just as Fine Gael councillor Noel O’Donovan was continuing his canvass just yards away. With Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins expected to top the poll yet again, it’s no surprise that another Social Democrats canvasser forecasts a “dogfight” to fill the two remaining seats.

In the Bandon canvass, there is an early curveball. Outside a supermarket, a friendly woman approaches and says she voted Cairns number one last time and may do so again, but asks: “Are you pro-men dressing up as women and invading female spaces and sport?”

Cairns responds instantly: “We just think that everyone should be able to live the life they want and be who they are.”

Exchanges are a little more straightforward down the street where most people seem to be out and so Cairns drops a pamphlet complete with a personalised note through the letterbox. Some answering the doors are non-committal about their voting intentions, but are unfailingly polite.

“I’ll make my mind up now in a minute,” says one elderly gentleman.

A few doors down, another man who describes himself as a floating voter has some words of warning: “It’s a dangerous business to be the third leg of the stool – very, very dangerous.”

Yet while Cairns is not taking the election for granted she is unabashed about her desire to go into government, even if that means Zoom meetings and phone calls while she’s on maternity leave.

“I didn’t go into politics to go into opposition; I certainly learned of the importance of it though,” she says.

“This election for the Social Democrats feels like an opportunity to turn our policies into reality. What we have seen with small parties ultimately is overpromising and underdelivering, and we want to have a different kind of relationship with the public.”

Central to that are the party’s non-negotiable red lines such as 50,000 affordable-purchase homes, full implementation of Sláintecare, and a senior minister for disability. She believes that her party’s “straight talking” on the doors is going down well.

“If you say that these are the five things, if they’re not in the programme for government, we are not in government. We will drive a hard bargain,” she says.

The canvass is winding down and while other Social Democrats teams will continue knocking on doors, some day this week Cairns will step back from the campaign.

“It’s difficult for me to imagine not going to the count but obviously I know that’s a strong possibility, because there are too many variables,” she says.

“It’s one of those weeks that’s impossible to plan for.”