April 05, 2005

Voice of the people


A mountain to climb...O'Laoi polled seventh in the Galway district. Alas, there were only six seats.


In contrast to the reams of analysis of the two by-election results in Leinster, there has been sod all comment on the Udarás na Gaeltachta elections this weekend. Udarás is the regional development authority for the Gaeltacht regions (explained here), and members of the board are elected by citizens of the Gaeltacht regions, including Galway, Mayo, Kerry, Donegal and Meath. Looking at TG4 election coverage on Sunday afternoon seemed to indicate that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would more or less hold their vote.



He didn't get elected, but he got twice as many votes as the Sinn Fein candidate.


And the seemingly inexorable rise of Sinn Féin didn’t cut much ice with the electorate – they increased their vote in Donegal (and managed to gain their first seat on the authority) but in Galway, their candidate was well outvoted by the Republican Sinn Fein candidate [every Easter, both Sinn Fein and Republican Sinn Fein troop down to Pearse’s cottage in Rosmuc to lay claim to the legacy of 1916 – though not both at the same time. This time, Barbra De Bruin gave the Shinner’s oration – clearly not enough to rouse the voters to action].

Posted by Monasette at April 5, 2005 09:16 AM
Comments

Udaras elections probably don't get much coverage because it's usually the same old heads who get reelected (e.g. after this election it's pretty much as you were with the exception of SF in Donegal) and the results do not provide any indication of national trends (or any trend at all). Once the elections are over party affiliations are left outside the door of the Udaras meetings as they band to together to get what they can for the locality.

The big story in this election is the large turnout in Galway city and the fact that two of the newly elected representatives (barring a change after the recount) can barely conduct a conversation in Irish.

The failure to redraw the Gaeltacht boundaries has finally come back to bite Eamonn O'Cuiv. When he wanted to make up the numbers he was happy enough to include the non-Irish-speaking population of the Gaeltacht. Now the people of Knocknacarra and ClareGalway - places where not a word of Irish is spoken - will have a big say in how funds allocated to the preservation of the Gaeltachts will be spent.

My father was canvassing for my uncle during the run up to the elections and when the uncle asked him would be canvas in Claregalway he refused point blank saying he wouldn't give them the satisfaction of having to canvas in English. I was joking with him afterwards that the first motion of the newly elected Udaras will be to have the meetings in English.

Posted by: Mark Waters at April 5, 2005 11:38 AM

Agreed, though the fact that there was almost no coverage at all (outside of TG4) is a bit disappointing - consider how much bloody time was devoted to the opening of Dundrum Shopping Centre.

Re the non-Irish aspect - yes - a change is needed , but I can't see anything happening until the other side of a general election.

Posted by: John at April 6, 2005 06:06 PM