VIDEO: Unicycling election candidate tops the pole in Cork
US-born Ella Goddin brought her unique style of canvassing on to the streets of Cork yesterday, treating office workers and tourists alike to a unique display of unicycle pole-dancing on the Grand Parade.
Two campaign supporters, pole-dancing teacher Foxy P-Cox and sex worker rights advocate Lady Grew, worked the pole before working the crowd, urging people to give Ella their number one vote.
Their canvassing style, and revealing outfits, certainly made an impression.
Whether voters in the city’s south central ward are ready to embrace Ella’s “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” campaign slogan — which reflects how personal freedom is a defining aspect of her world view — remains to be seen.
Ella, who is running as an Independent, is confident they are. “Change needs to happen,” she says. “If the Eurovision can be won by a bearded woman, I can win a seat on Cork City Council.”
Ella was born in the US. Bullied in sixth grade, — her classmates printed ‘Hate Ella’ badges — she struggled with depression.
She moved to Cork with her Irish partner, Paul, almost a decade ago. They have run the Utopia Nation grow shop on Barrack St for nine years, selling cannabis seeds and a wide range of grow materials.
Ella wants to legalise all drugs, as well as prostitution. “Legalising is the only way forward,” she says. “Only in a culture of information can you make change through education.”
She has been active in the community for years, helping establish the Elizabeth Fort Market Festival and the 7Up on Ice event at the fort, and helped persuade the State to give the fort back to the people of Cork.
A member of the council’s San Francisco twinning committee, Ella also played a key role in making tech history when Cork’s 2012 and 2013 St Patrick’s Day parades were simulcast between the two cities.
As she hung upside-down from her pole yesterday, her legs spread wide and her lingerie-clad bum glistening in a light summer shower, she said she truly believes in the people of Cork.
“This city is a wonderful and beautiful city, and we need to focus on that, to be proud, participate in our government, to have a voice,” she says.
“Not everyone’s going to like me. But maybe if they gave me a chance, they might.”
Her mother, Ruby, who is in her 80s, sat nearby, watching and smiling. “At least she’s honest,” says Ruby. “She’s very honest.”
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