The Taoiseach survived a long dark night of results in Tullamore in the company of friends, writes FRANK McNALLY
IT WAS a weekend of mixed fortunes for Barry Cowen, younger brother of the Taoiseach. As he awaited the first count that would confirm him a poll-topper for the Tullamore area of Offaly County Council on Saturday, he was also keeping an ear out for news from Lisburn, where his greyhound, Gilbeyhall Jake, was running in the semi-final of the £10,000 Tennents Gold Cup.
“It could pay for the election,” he quipped. But what were the dog’s chances? “He’ll win all right,” said Cowen jnr, with the confidence of a man who was as good as past the post in his own race, on a tallymen’s estimate of 1,600 first preferences.
In the event, the dog lost – and badly. Delivering a performance that had echoes of Cowen snr’s first year as Taoiseach, he started hot favourite, from trap one, and led early on. Then he was overtaken by events, and by most of the field. In the end, he fared even worse than Fianna Fáil did at the weekend: trailing in fourth.
So when the older brother turned up at the count centre around midnight, it was from another trap he had to draw inspiration. The Taoiseach had spent the evening watching Ireland’s 1-1 draw against Bulgaria, over a pint or two, and saw in the soccer certain parallels with his own plight.
“A great opening goal, then a soft goal conceded,” he summarised. “I suppose both Trapattoni and myself will have to look to a good defence.”
Defence was the order of the evening, all right. But if the Taoiseach was having a long dark night of soul in the early hours of Sunday, at least he was having it among friends. He stayed at the Tullamore count centre until the bitter end: 7am.
And no wonder. Because, in contrast with the disasters unfolding elsewhere (including Lisburn), there was nothing but good news here.
All politics are local, as we know, but some are more local than others. Still bathing in what remains of the glow from having a local man in Government Buildings, Tullamore count centre was a throw-back to the good times. If Offaly had been replicated all over Ireland at the weekend, the elections would have been a Fianna Fáil triumph.
Barry Cowen was elected on the first count. Sinead Dooley, the Taoiseach’s constituency secretary, was among those who followed him in. Her uncle, Eamon, topped the poll in Ferbane. And overall the results confirmed that, in Offaly at least, Fianna Fáil is still top dog.
The only glitch in the local operation’s success on Saturday was when Mary Cowen tried to gain entry to the count hall in advance of her husband, and had to explain who she was to security before being allowed in.
The count took place in a large warehouse on an industrial estate, and proceeded with all the speed of molasses seeping from a silage pit. Still, with the weather outside as dark and stormy as the national mood, the place had a cocoon-like quality for Fianna Fáil party workers, who may not have been in a hurry to go anywhere else.
In particular, the success of the Cowen machine contrasted starkly with that of another brotherly combination, in Dublin Central. But the Taoiseach rebuffed suggestions that the humiliation of the Aherns was a retrospective verdict on his predecessor. “I don’t accept that at all,” he said.
As for the national result, he was suitably humble. “It has been a very poor result by our standards,” he conceded. “We all knew going into this campaign it was going to be a very tough campaign, given where we are in the economy and the very tough decisions the Government has had to take”.
By last night, D-Day plus 2, he sounded like a general counting the cost of the Normandy landings, when he arrived at the East count centre in Punchestown. “We’ve lost a lot of stalwart people, good people who have served the country well.” But the Government would fight on, he insisted, and Fine Gael’s no-confidence motion in the Dáil this week would fail. “We will strenuously defend it and defeat it,” he said.
In another of his mantras over the weekend, the Taoiseach drew inspiration – a little improbably – from athletics. Government was “a marathon, not a sprint”, he told reporters.
Perhaps ominously, his brother’s greyhound was beaten in a 525-yard race – an event classified in greyhound racing as middle-distance.