Michael Harty prepares to answer calling at Leinster House

‘No Doctor No Village’ candidate, Michael Harty TD will be brought back down to earth today from the weekend delirium that marked his election as an Independent TD in Clare.

Dr Harty will be treating the aches and ailments of his patients at his Kilmihil surgery, giving him little time to reflect on his stellar performance that saw his grab the second seat in Clare.

Working as a GP in west Clare for the past 32 years, 63-year-old Dr Harty was contemplating his radical career departure in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Dr Harty said his “one regret” in securing a seat “will be no longer be treating my patients, and I think the feeling is mutual”.

He said: “I have mostly an elderly population — people with complex illnesses with complex diseases — that is what I specialise in. To move into an area looking after people in a different way will be strange for me, but I feel I can do it and I feel that we have a message that is worth fighting for.”

Dr Harty will get a locum to operate the practice and retain a supervisory role, stressing his income from the practice would be zero.

He said he had never been to an election count before after receiving a rapturous welcome on Saturday night.

“The last five weeks have been like five All-Ireland weekends in a row, there has been spectacular excitement,” he said.

Elected with 11,962 votes on the ninth count, Dr Harty said that the civil war in his village of Kilmihil ended with his election campaign.

“People who never voted other than Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael were driving around together canvassing for me,” he said.

An emotional Joe Carey of Fine Gael spoke of going to his mother’s grave on Saturday “to have a word with her” and travelling out to Cree in west Clare for a month’s mind for a deceased party colleague before finally arriving into the count through a side door just before 2am on Sunday.