Michael McGrath on target in tight race to top in Cork
THERE’S only ever been one McGrath linked with chants of ‘Ooh Aah’ — until now.
Women of a certain vintage in a Carrigaline estate seem just a little thrilled to see Michael McGrath on the campaign trail.
Pensioner Anne Moore is effusive in her praise for the Cork South-Central Fianna Fáil candidate, who she says helped secure her a house in the Mount Rivers estate.
“Michael and his brother Séamus have been so good to me all through the years,” she says. In fact, she had talked him up so much, her friends “think we’re having an affair”, she giggles.
Around the estate, senior ladies stand in doorways, waiting for a few words with the golden-haired boy.
Kathleen Donnellan shakes his hand warmly, promising to give him her number one, before making way for Michael to go inside and convince her husband, also Michael, to do likewise.
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But Michael Donnellan is having none of it.
“I grew up in Turners Cross, I was a neighbour of Micheál Martin’s, so he’ll be getting my number one. But Michael [McGrath] understands that,” he says.
In Carrigaline Day Care centre, where 10 diners are digging into tasty-looking plates of roast chicken, spuds, and veg, Bobbie Lambe, chair of the Meals on Wheels, says Michael would also get her number one.
“He does a lot of work for the community, anything you ask of him, he’ll either get it done or put you on the right road towards getting it done,” she says.
Kathleen Callaghan, a nurse at the centre, announces she holds no truck with politicians at all.
“I don’t believe a word any of them say. I mean, who in the name of God do I vote for?” she asks.
Finbarr O’Leary, a staunch McGrath supporter, is tucking into his dinner.
“His chances of taking a seat are very good I think,” Finbarr says. “He’s a great worker, people understand that he’s doing his best for mortgage holders.”
Finbarr, a veteran of election campaigns, thinks Fianna Fáil will take two seats in the constituency (Michael and Micheál), with Simon Coveney taking one for Fine Gael. “After that, it’s hard to call,” he says, with Fine Gael’s Jerry Buttimer and Labour’s Ciarán Lynch likely to fight it out for the fourth and final seat in what was previously a five-seat constituency.
But what of Michael himself? Does he fancy his chances? “It will be tough,” he says. “I took the fifth seat last time around. But it’s an intriguing battle.”
Is it a battle that he and Micheál Martin are fighting together? Rumour has it that neither is canvassing on behalf of the other. Michael denies this. “Our directors of elections met and agreed a strategy that we can both live with. Micheál and myself have a very cordial workmanlike relationship and we are both determined to hang on to our seats,” he says.
But if he doesn’t? Will he return to a career in accounting or a stay-at-home dad to his seven children?
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,” he says.
He concedes his career, which requires him to spend three days a week in Dublin, is “challenging” for family life. But he says Sarah, his wife, gets terrific help from her mother, Eileen O’Brien, and Michael’s own mother, Marie, widowed these past 20 years, who is also highly involved in her son’s election campaign, as is his brother Séamus, himself a Cork County councillor.
Does Michael every tire of the endless requests for help from constituents? Apparently not. It’s about public service, he says, and it’s “very fulfilling”.
“People raise legitimate issues,” he says. “If you can solve their problems, great, if not, it’s important to be upfront about it.”
But, for him, politics is more than a grá for endless problem-solving — it’s the ability to have an influence at national level and the engagement in national debate that keep him in thrall.
“Every time I walk through the gates of Dáil Éireann, I remind myself of how privileged I am,” he says.
One of his constituents, Peter Ó Maolruaidh, is undecided about who will get his vote. As we stand chatting at the doorway, a glorious smell wafts out.
“I’ve roast potatoes and two lamb chops on,” he says. “I better go in and turn them.”
“Hopefully we’ve turned you towards giving me a number one,” Michael says, smooth as Paul McGrath.
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