Áras déjà vu: Novel predicted lineup in 2007

ELECTION addicts might have thought you couldn’t make up a scenario in which a hard-nosed Sinn Féiner, two Derry candidates and an openly gay man all vie to become President — but apparently you could.

Nostradamus himself might have called it outlandish, but the novel Running Mates did just that in 2007, eerily mirroring this year’s race for the Áras.

The crime thriller features characters who — by sheer chance — bear a passing correspondence to Martin McGuinness, Dana Rosemary Scallon and David Norris.

Its author, former BBC Northern Ireland political journalist and Derry News editor Garbhan Downey, began writing it in 2005.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, he said he was as surprised as anyone to see his plot seemingly unfolding in real life.

Even more strangely, the scenario isn’t the first time a plot from the book has seemingly leaped from the literary to the front pages.

“This coincidence happened in 2007 as well when [then DUP MLA] Iris Robinson said she had some psychologist who he claimed could cure homosexuality,” said Downey.

“In my book, there’s a right-wing politician who brings in a monsignor to do the same. I nearly fell off my chair, so you can imagine what I’m thinking now.

“The idea of two Derry candidates throwing their name into the hat was unthinkable not so long ago.

“Dana did try it before and it has been on the agenda for a while, although the SDLP seem to have given up on it, but it’s surreal,” he added.

While Downey asked for readers to be kept in the dark over the conclusion of the plot, he has admitted to a more than passing interest in the real race over the coming weeks.

Labour’s Michael D Higgins, he believes, is the front-runner, and although Downey does not see where Mr Norris will get second preferences from, he is not discounting any candidate at this stage.

“Take Martin McGuinness. There is a lot of criticism of him as well, but he’s a man for a long campaign, he’s hard to knock out,” he said.

Considering how Mr Downey’s novel has mirrored the current election, those involved may be unwise to discount his views.

There’s another reason too: in 2001 Downey correctly predicted all 18 Northern Ireland MP seats, a feat he missed out on repeating by just one last year.

“It was Naomi Long in east Belfast [the Alliance Party candidate who took DUP first minister Peter Robinson’s seat]. I received an Ian Knox [Irish News political cartoonist] image from a political consultancy firm as a prize so I sent it to her Westminster office to say sorry for ever doubting her,” he said.

* www.blackstaffpress.com www.garbhandowney.com