“I think there’s a perception that just because we’re from a rural area, that we’re somehow conservative by default, or we don’t want to engage in meaningful debate, but safe to say it’s completely inaccurate.”
Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns expresses confidently that her party can make significant gains in both rural and urban parts of Galway West, as she speaks alongside her young Gaeltacht-based candidate, Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich.
Despite the party polling a modest 3.6 per cent across the constituency in the last general election, the party leader is hopeful that Nic Fhionnlaoich can capitalise on the momentum of Catherine Connolly’s successful presidential campaign, and be in with a credible chance of winning the seat.
With Sinn Féin members in Connemara currently refusing to canvass for their candidate Mark Lohan due to his lack of local connections, some — including former Fianna Fáil minister Éamon Ó Cuív — have predicted that Nic Fhionnlaoich will emerge as the best-placed candidate on the left.
“Míde was selected as our candidate for Galway West based on her outstanding work in her community and in her career,” Cairns tells the Advertiser.
“But there’s no doubt that her being a Gaeltacht woman is just a huge added bonus. I think we know that our Gaeltacht communities are severely underrepresented, and that is mirrored in how they’re funded, and protected, and looked after, and how the language is too.
“And it’s something that always stood out about Catherine Connolly when she was in Leinster House; her use of the Irish language, and making it accessible as well.”
Having grown up on a dairy farm in West Cork, Cairns says that issues such as health and housing are more acute in rural areas, and that by standing on a platform of improved public services and housing provision, the Soc Dems can appeal to rural voters.
However, given that the party has no TDs outside the Greater Dublin Area or County Cork, does this perhaps indicate they have a problem reaching rural voters?
“I think just in terms of how the question is proposed, it’s almost like, how does ‘us’ speak to ‘them’, but for example, myself and Míde, we are them. I was born in West Cork in the parish I still live in now, it’s the same for Míde. So I don’t think there’s an issue with communication at all,” Cairns says.
“And I think in Ireland as well, we do have a really unique political landscape, in that people have often voted Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, because it’s almost part of an identity, like, ‘Oh, my family is Fianna Fáil, and my family is Fine Gael.’
“So it is a big step to change your vote, and the fact that so many people have in the past five, ten years, just shows that there’s a huge shift towards a new style of politics.”
According to tallies, the Social Democrats were estimated to have picked up just 2.6 per cent of first-preference votes across South Connemara in the last general election.
Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas was the strongest candidate in this area, receiving an estimated 20.3 per cent, while Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael respectively achieved 19.6 and 18.6 per cent.
However, Sinn Féin’s Mairéad Farrell and independent Catherine Connolly respectively received an estimated 13.9 and 12.7 per cent of first preferences in the LEA — and it is likely that Nic Fhionnlaoich will need to significantly tap into this left-of-centre vote in order to consolidate her support in the city if she hopes to win the seat.
The candidate believes that as a local native Irish speaker, she is able to tap into the discontent of many across the Gaeltacht.
“I think there is this perception, particularly of areas like Connemara, that you know, unless you’re in Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, you have no chance out there. I can tell you, talking to people on the doors, they want something different,” Nic Fhionnlaoich says.
“It’s not good enough that we should be ignored. It’s not good enough that we die the slow death of fewer and fewer daily speakers every census. And it’s important that we don’t just say that something must be done, we actually do something about it.”
Nic Fhionnlaoich believes that a lack of affordable housing and services represents an existential crisis for the Gaeltacht, and that young Irish speakers who grew up there are unable to return.
“When I look at my generation and even people a couple years older, there was always a pattern of emigration from the Gaeltacht and people come back and raise a family. People aren’t coming back anymore because they can’t, and they would love to.
“You have pretty much anyone my age who’s still in Connemara staying in their childhood bedroom like I am… and we’re being priced out bit by bit of our own communities.
“I’ve already seen that there’s primary schools in Gaeltacht that have smaller and smaller classes every year… Without basic public services, without ambulance coverage, without housing, and without all those basic things people need to survive out we’re not going to have a next generation.”
Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O’Callaghan TD, when serving as the party’s housing spokesperson, previously said that Cost Rental housing developments were not suitable for the provision of affordable housing in the Gaeltacht.
“I don’t think that’s an anti-Cost Rental stance. I think it’s more so that if you are not providing affordable homes that people can buy if you are not providing social housing and you’re just doing Cost Rental, then you’re not solving the whole problem,” says Nic Fhionnlaoich.
“We have always advocated for a multi layered approach, where we have different types of housing, but that they’re all either social or affordable.”
The party also advocates the establishment of a state-owned construction company to directly deliver public housing, and Nic Fhionnlaoich believes that this policy is particularly needed across both Galway city and county.
“This developer-led approach that we have seen from government of ‘We leave the developers to it, and it’ll be fine, and the market will provide’, I don’t need to tell people that it hasn’t worked,” she says.
“And whatever hope you have up in Dublin of big developers seeing it as profit-worthy to build there, [it’s] certainly not happening in Galway.”
