Mary Lou and Eoin battle to avoid eviction from Big Brussels house

“BIG Brussels house, this is the Voter. You are live on June 5, please do not swear.

“Mary Lou McDonald and Eoin Ryan, you have been nominated for eviction from the European Parliament.

“The votes have been counted and verified, and I can now reveal the MEP to be evicted form the Dublin constituency is…”

The flat-out fight for the third berth in the capital has become politics as reality game show with Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil knowing there can only be one winner.

With the constituency truncating from four seats to three, this was always going to be the firestorm front line of the Euro elections.

As Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell and Labour’s Proinsias De Rossa look on, safe in the knowledge they have a return ticket to the Euro gravy train, Ms McDonald and Mr Ryan slug it out, their battle illuminated by the irony that neither believed they would be in this position. Refreshingly, Ms McDonald makes it clear she sees her future in the Dáil. Indeed, her 2004 Euro victory was meant to be merely a platform for her expected Dublin Central coronation at the 2007 general election – but the voters in Bertieland had other ideas.

Mr Ryan made it five years ago only because of Royston Brady’s car crash of a campaign exploding so spectacularly in its final days amid the swirl of allegations over kidnappings and codswallop.

Mr Ryan’s profile since has been so low as to be practically subterranean and that, combined with a voter backlash against Fianna Fáil, does not bode well.

Ms McDonald likes to portray herself as the underdog, but she knows she has the edge this time.

As she canvasses in the north inner city, the Sinn Féin van blares out the Undertones’ happy-clappy anthem, It’s Gonna Happen – presumably the North’s other great post-punk band, Stiff Little Fingers’ Alternative Ulster, was considered a tad hardline for the new touchy-feely Shinners.

Almost on cue, as Ms McDonald steps out from the Cabra sports centre to be filmed for RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, the unmistakably cheesy sounds of the Bee Gee’s More Than A Woman, pour from the upstairs gym.

And, indeed, Ms McDonald is far more than a woman to Sinn Féin. The disastrous 2007 general election campaign, when the party expected to double its Dáil representation to 10, but ended up reducing it to four, left deep scars.

Gerry Adams’s woeful display in the leader’s debate showed up a striking lack of knowledge about the Republic’s economy, and Ms McDonald’s failure to land a seat confirmed their marginalisation.

The private school pupil and Trinity graduate was never really accepted by the hard core working-class Sinn Féin vote clustered in the north inner city, and the dual mandate rule prevented her trying for a second time at the by-election being held on the same day as the Euro poll.

She is on firmer ground fighting Mr Ryan, who hails from one of the many Fianna Fáil dynasties. Ms McDonald is used to struggling against such types, as the Lenihan clan blocked her progress in Fianna Fáil on their west Dublin turf.

Relentlessly promoted by the Shinners, Ms McDonald is their ideal face in the South, especially as she has never gotten her immaculately manicured hands dirty in the North.

That, and the transfers from maverick independent Patricia McKenna and anti-Lisbon socialist Joe Higgins, should see her safely over the line on June 5, and back into the Big Brussels house.

But for Euro show, read sideshow, because Mary Lou won’t rest until she is starring centre stage at a Dáil near you.