Kirk’s bold campaign fails to lift off

DRIVING out of Dublin on the N4 at night, the posters loom out of the darkness. They are massive, illuminated, unmissable. They portray a “Fine Gael winning team,” Enda flanked by Avril and Mairéad.

It’s only when you’re passing that you notice that there is a second poster alongside. But damned luck would have it that the poster’s floodlights are on the blink. As you pass, you just about make out the image and lettering, dimly lit by the reflected light from the Fine Gael beacon. Kirk, it says above the outline of a face.

It’s just not happening for Séamus Kirk in these elections. Quiet, placid, self-effacing and a decent man, he was the only Fianna Fáil TD who volunteered to stand for Europe, who didn’t have to have his arm twisted by Bertie or whoever makes the poker plays in FF these days.

But for all his willingness, Kirk’s campaign has failed to ignite and with it has been doused all hopes of FF taking two of three seats in East.

Aylward always looked like the front runner. Doyle and McGuinness have their Les and Janice Battersby act. Cassells looks so mean that you’d swear Seán Boylan had been training him. And as for Kirk, his two decades in Leinster House, his chairmanship of the FF Parliamentary Party have been rendered meaningless. His opinion poll ratings have drifted. He doesn’t look comfortable or assured among the other bruisers. The mutterings in some FF circles is maybe Donie Cassidy would have been a better man to do a hell-for-leather job.

Early morning in Navan and Noel Dempsey, the director of elections for the five North Leinster counties, has got a bumper turnout for a breakfast rally. Charlie McCreevy is the star turn, lords it in his usual unflappable manner. Dempsey himself maybe puts the finger on Kirk’s failings as a candidate. In the warm-up speech he mentions the Louth man’s junior ministry in food and what he achieved. But in the next breath he mentions his modesty, that he himself has hid his light under a bushel.

Later, in Drogheda, it’s Charlie who leads the charge on the canvas, with a walkabout that can only be described as swashbuckling. A woman stops the finance minister to give out about pension increases.

Kirk, with his big loping gait, shadows his colleague, silent, almost bashful. He’s clearly not a showman, feels more comfortable on a one-to-one.

Earlier that morning, Kirk had quoted Mark Twain, saying reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Speaking now, he’s still insistent that he’s in with a chance, that he can defy the low ratings.

“The opinion polls taken to date were relatively early in the campaign. I found that over the last fortnight, I have been around to each county of the five.

“I hold the view that I will be in the hunt for the third seat. It will be determined by sequence of elimination and where the preference vote of those who are eliminated go.”

A little later he muses, apropos the slippage. “Liam has an advantage. His name begins with A, my name begins with K.”

But has he failed to make the transition from Dáil to European elections. “Euro elections are different to the Dáil,” he accepts. “If you are at home canvassing people you know personally that you have know for years. This is about profile and name recognition. They are the key elements.”

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kirk was a star player with the Louth senior team. In 1972, playing for Louth, Kirk sustained such horrific leg injuries from a tackle that it almost severed his leg. His career ended that day. He has spent five of the past 30 years on crutches, remains in constant pain, and underwent an operation a few years ago to fuse the joints and bones of his ankle which has left one leg shorter than the other. It was that or amputation. The quirk was that it was the injury that prompted him to think about politics as a career.

During this campaign, he has openly talked about his disability.

“I am not making an issue of it but I do have a greater understanding of the needs of disabled,” he said.

The difficulty with mobility hampered his campaign initially but it doesn’t explain why he has not been there or there about in the ratings. In fact, his lack of impact could be seen as representative of the overall FF campaigning.

Kirk has plugged away at a number of issues including Sellafield, the retention of low corporate taxes, childcare, care for the elderly, and CAP reforms. But worthy and all as they are, haven’t they become subservient in this contest to the selling of charisma, personality and energy? “It’s hard to disagree with that assessment. Arguing over number of posters, removal of posters, boundaries or personality clashes seems to be the thing.

“The European Parliament and the issues are far more important than that. I think you have to rise the level of debate.”

But the home truth is that rising the level of debate does not rise the level of votes. And if the opinion polls are to be believed, others will step into the limelight, leaving Seamus Kirk, like his poster, in the shade.