All kinds of suspicious serendipity on walkabout

ON BACHELORS Walk, a young woman wheels her buggy with purpose through the small knot of journalists.

“There’s Dana! I want to talk to her!” The crowd parts.

“Hi Dana!” she cries. “I’m going to vote for you. You’re pro-life.” The cameras zoom in on the exchange. It’s been slim pickings up to this – most of the prospective voters canvassed so far have turned out to be tourists.

The two women have a chat, ignoring the microphones stuck under their noses, then they admire the lovely baby eyeing the scene with cautious interest from the buggy below.

It’s these unexpected encounters which enliven election walkabouts. They can also give an indication of how a candidate is faring with the public.

But it’s not only media observers who are aware of this.

When the group moves on, Sara Jagodic from Dundrum tells us she will be voting for Dana “because she’s pro-life and because, well, because I think she’s honest, actually”.

Up until recently, she says she hadn’t given much thought to politics, but since four-month-old Caitlin came along, she’s changed her outlook.

Then Sara sets off in the opposite direction, having had her word. Further along the pavement, Dana is in deep discussion with Laura Morrissey from Clontarf, who is working in a cafe despite having recently qualified as a primary school teacher.

Laura explains how the new Job Bridge scheme is offering teachers positions in schools but for a small fraction of what those already employed there are paid.

What did Dana have to say?

“Nothing. She just kept smiling at me and saying ‘yeah’. All I can hope is that she can highlight the situation.” In fairness to Dana, she raised the issue last evening during a debate on Today FM.

Her small team of canvassers – one man wheels a double-buggy holding two infants and a large stash of leaflets – try to drum up support while their candidate gets on with meeting people. Among the young women who wear pink and green Dana T-shirts, we see a familiar face.

It’s young mum Sara.

After she had pushed in to see the candidate, she walked away and joined three of Dana’s team. They appeared to know each other. One of them handed her a T-shirt and she slipped it on.

Around the corner into Liffey Street and the photographers are doing a double-take. “That’s her. The same one with the baby. In the pink.” The incident comes to mind later in the day, when Fine Gael’s Gay Mitchell is doing a presidential sprint down Grafton Street, surrounded by Ministers and TDs. They belt along briskly. People who want to meet the candidate have to be quick.

He gets a decent, if somewhat mixed reception, but it will have provided some encouragement for the struggling Mitchell campaign. A priest stops Gay, who manages not to look surprised when he shows him a newspaper clipping of the in memoriam notice he had published for his dog.

At one point, he is stopped by a woman who is only delighted to talk to him. Her initial greeting causes some of the more cynical among us to smile.

“Aaah Gay,” sez she, “it’s great that I’m here by chance!”

You have to be on your toes for all these candidates. Suspicious serendipity, you might say and we’re on the look out for it.

Back with Dana on her walking tour of Dublin’s city centre and she’s getting a good reaction in Henry Street, particularly from older shoppers who remember her with affection since the Eurovision days.

To a man and a woman, they think she looks lovely and tell her so. To the Dubs, she’s Dana. No Rosemary Scallon for them.

“Howya Dana! All Kinds of Everything!” Marie Coughlan from Coolock steps back in admiration. “Janey, you haven’t changed since the Eurovision.” She’s with her daughter Donna, who is pregnant and due in January.

While they talk amid the midday bustle of the city’s busiest shopping street, Dana places a gentle hand on Donna’s bump. That’s something you wouldn’t see the other candidates do, but with Dana, it’s allowed. “She looks great, doesn’t she?” says Marie. “She’d make a lovely president. None of the men appeal to me.”

Meanwhile, her team hold out their leaflets, but don’t press them on anyone. They are the most diffident of the roaming bands of leafleteers currently saturating our streets.

Their candidate doesn’t canvass as much as waft daintily. Wee Dana, in one serious pair of heels. No wonder she takes it slowly. Suddenly, we realise why it was only wee Michael D who needed to stand on a box during the TV3 debate. Dana packs her own elevation.

She meets Ronán McCormack who was her dancing partner on the TV show Celebrity Jig and Reels.He wishes her well.

“I tore my calf muscle in the final. I let her down.”

Outside the Ilac Centre, a woman takes Dana’s outstretched hand and tells her: “I met you years ago outside the Carlton Cinema after you won the Eurovision. You were a lady then and you are a lady now.”

Dana is not doing too well in her TV and radio appearances but in person she is something of an irresistible force. It’s the eyes. Those big brown velvety eyes and the soft little-girl voice. People seem pleased to see her and they wish her well, but when you ask them about the election, most of the replies are generally vague and non-committal.

Not everyone is glad to see her.

One shopper, to the mortification of her daughter, gives Dana short shrift.

Why?

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s from the North. Why do they think they can come down to this end of the sticks when they’re from another country? To be honest, I’m a republican and I’m not voting for any of them.”

“Come on, Ma,” the daughter urges, throwing her eyes up to heaven.

A team member stands to one side, holding out a leaflet. “Dana will defend you,” he calls out to a passerby. She, at that moment, has enveloped a man in a soothing hug.

He approached to tell his story: at a very low ebb, wife and children living in a mobile home, worried about what is happening to the economy and fearful of the encroaching power of Europe.

He seems genuinely upset.

Dana promises she will protect him. Ten minutes later, perhaps imbued with the healing power of Dana, he too is on the team and handing out leaflets. Or maybe it’s just another case of suspicious serendipity.