Nobody left for Ming to convince

Luke "Ming" Flanagan is on the canvass on Galway’s Shop St for just a little while before he is marched off to the nearest Garda station.

Those days were supposed to be behind him. Back in his youth, when he rose to prominence as a supporter of decriminalising cannabis, he was regularly arrested. He was even imprisoned once, but his father insisted on bailing him, and he came to be known as “Ming the Merciful”.

On this campaign day, it is a voter who is marching Ming off to the station to report him for an alleged criminal offence. The voter’s name is Gearóid O’Connor. He approached the candidate outside Eason and asked why he was “enticing people to break the law” by cutting bogs that are supposed to be preserved under an EU directive.