Mick Barry goes shopping for votes in Blackpool

Smart money says the anti-austerity candidate is in running for last seat in Cork North Central, writes Michael Clifford

Mick Barry is hovering over Jack Lynch. The Anti-Austerity Alliance candidate is handing out leaflets, engaging with people, trying to reel in a few number ones.

The late taoiseach is reposing in bronze, seated in the shadow of Barry’s canvass, appearing as relaxed as the man who may take the seat that was once his. If you’re looking for a glimpse of the new political dispensation then you need go no further than Blackpool Shopping Centre on Cork’s northside. Lynch is immortalised in a statue, one of their own, whom they regarded until the day he died as “the real Taoiseach”.