Galway Gaeilgeoir right back in the rás as Slick Seánie slips up

MICHAEL D sits on his bus, a salad sandwich in a brown bag on his lap, about to hit the road on the second last day.

He is confident again.

Slick Seánie’s bandwagon has hit the buffers and old warhorse Higgins is back on the move.

It’s a funny old life.

Thirteen months ago he told the Labour Party he wanted their blessing to run for president of Ireland. He got it and got on with planning his campaign.

By the time it officially began, there was nothing Michael D didn’t know about the job. He eased ahead in the polls.

Avuncular, erudite, experienced, with the Irish gift for language and tune, a bockety knee and a whiff of diddly-aye for the Yanks.

He stayed clear of the election rough and tumble, as befits a potential first citizen. But while his people kept an eye out for the perceived threats from David Norris and Martin McGuinness, they failed to see danger approaching fast from behind.

And suddenly, Seán Gallagher stole up on the inside. When the rest of the Independent candidates fell by the wayside, the mysterious motivational speaker with the stellar CV and reality TV profile shot to the front.

Slick Seánie was selling the best of the boom, and it seemed voters wanted to buy back in.

Last weekend, a series of polls were released confirming an earlier result that Gallagher was so far ahead of his nearest rival that only a disaster would stop him from collecting the keys to the Áras from Mary McAleese on Friday.

The figures shocked the Higgins camp. They struggled to fathom Gallagher’s popularity. The man was fighting a brilliant campaign, but where was the substance? Strip away the self-help slogans and what was left? Probe that impressive CV and the entrepreneurial shine faded fast. Then there was the Fianna Fáil connection. It didn’t matter. Michael D, it seemed, would not be Uachtarán na hÉireann.

Their heads went down.

Until then, there had been many highlights for the candidate. He speaks of the times he addressed young people in the universities and institutes and the time an entire village in Donegal came out to greet him.

And we hear that word from him that he used to utter with great regularity when he was the minister for culture: "Fintestic! Fintestic!" Then came the polls, followed by the clincher in Monday's Irish Times.

On the bus, Michael D’s wife Sabina tries to concentrate on the good things. Great reaction on the streets, the usual sort of thing.

But for the candidate, having prepared for so long and seemingly come so near, the weekend’s alarm call is still raw.

“It was such a disappointment. Such a disappointment,” he says. “I mean, the gap . . .” and his voice trails away.

“You feel . . . felt . . . a bit gutted.” He can say that now, on the battle bus on the way to Carlow as part of a sweep of the southeast and south. “My feeling now is that this is winnable.”

Gallagher’s disastrous Frontline performance on Monday night is the reason for the reversal of fortunes. Ironically, it was Martin McGuinness who delivered the bullet, showing up the front-runner for being less than honest in his account of his involvement with Fianna Fáil.

A woman from south county Dublin, who grilled Gallagher on his business dealings, further dented his credibility. A further encounter on radio between the two has now seen Stillorgan Glenna gain a measure of celebrity status herself.

The front-runner’s difficulties were the talk of the campaign yesterday. He cancelled his tour engagements, concentrating on media appearances.

Higgins doesn’t want to dwell on his rival’s discomfiture, but he knows he has been given a lifeline. “I had a long talk with Eamon Gilmore after the show. That big spike in support is not irreversible. We resolved to go back to the constituencies and just pull out all the stops.”

Music blares from the bus’s PA system. There’s a lot of Luke Kelly – it turns out Sabina was a bridesmaid at his wedding.

At his final press conference in Dublin, Michael D is joined by Sabina, his twin sons Michael and John and his daughter Alice Mary. His fourth child, Daniel, is minding the fort in Galway.

Sabina, an actor, misses no opportunity to talk up her husband. In fact, the pair of them could talk for Ireland.

“We are married 37 years, we are together, on and off, for 42 years,” he tells the gathering in the Alexander Hotel. The journalists, frankly, are more interested in Michael D’s opinions on the previous night’s high drama in Montrose.

He says little, and says a lot. It’s always to do with language with him. The job description is very different to that of an entrepreneur, he says.

The press push him to stick the boot in. He won’t, save repeating his call for transparency and a remark that there is still “a considerable way to go” before the questions raised by the debate are answered.

Would he consider a second term? asks a journalist.

“Well, I can’t predict the love of a nation,” he grinned.

Their first stop is Gaelcholáiste Cheatharlach in Carlow. (A Labour media adviser gets a frantic call from a foreign news crew trying to locate the school.) The candidate addresses the pupils in Irish. The only thing we could make out was “Gorta Mór” and “TG Ceathair.” But the pupils seemed impressed.

“He was savage,” said 3rd year student Hazel O’Flaherty.

“He’s cool,” said her classmate, Jonathan Castle. Why? “Because it’s just the way it is.” As the bus went on its merry way, Slick Seánie was coming under sustained pressure in the radio and television studios.

Nobody wants to call the result now. One thing is for sure, we have a real contest now.