Michael Healy Rae support runs (6ft) deep

All politics is local, especially when it involves a maverick Independent TD who potentially holds the election outcome in his hands. Political Reporter Fiachra Ó Cionnaith spends a day on the campaign trail with Michael Healy Rae, whose followers canvass for him even in death

For a man who epitomises the mantra that all politics is local, it was no surprise that when we meet Michael Healy Rae just as he comes from a funeral.

“I had to go to Waterville [on the Iveragh Peninsula in Kerry] because a friend of mine, Danny O’Mahony, died, and it was sad because I knew him an awful long time. He was 85, a great campaigner for us, a warrior, and a very nice man,” says Mr Healy Rae.