Ned goes into battle but fails to find worthy sparring partner

ON THE CANVASS with NED O'KEEFFE:YOU MIGHT be forgiven for thinking that after registering at a mere 4 per cent in The Irish Times/TNS/mrbi opinion poll in the Euro South constituency, Fianna Fáil veteran, Ned O'Keeffe might decide to head for the hills and the safety of his Cork heartland.

And to those unfamiliar with the internecine nature of Fianna Fáil politics in North Cork, the news that Ned was going canvassing in Glanworth village just a few miles from his home in Mitchelstown might have appeared as just that – a retreat to an O’Keeffe stronghold.

But Glanworth, while it may be just the whiff of a pig farm away from Mitchelstown, is far from a Ned stronghold with local Fianna Fáil Councillor Frank O’Flynn enjoying the same sort of relationship with Ned that Rafael Benitez enjoys with Sir Alex Ferguson.

And so when Ned announced that he would meet The Irish Times in Glanworth for a spot of canvassing, it had box-office written all over it with the prospect of echoing chants of “Neddo, Neddo, Neddo” vying with a chorus of “There’s only one Frank O’Flynn”.

The farmer collecting a load of fertiliser from the farm stores in the village was well attuned to nuance of the inquiry. “Did I see Ned O’Keeffe? No, but I saw Frank O’Flynn canvassing down the Ballyhooley Road so I’d say Ned must be gone the other way,” he chuckled.

But Ned was standing his ground right in the heart of a Glanworth festooned with Frank O’Flynn posters, talking to some workmen literally raising the roof of the local church and all promising him they would remember him come June 5th.

Ned reminded The Irish Timesof our last encounter on the campaign trail. "Remember Lisbon – I was out for a Yes vote at Fermoy mart – holding the town of Fermoy single-handed like Sgt Costume on the bridge at Athlone," he quipped with his trademark roguish smile.

A woman pulled up in her car and promptly ignored Ned’s approaches as she went into a local shop. “We’ll wait for her,” said Ned. “Sure we might get a bit of reaction – sure that’s what you want isn’t it, a bit of colour?” he winked.

“No, not interested,” declared the woman as she emerged from the shop to get back into her car, leaving Ned, a sheaf of leaflets in hand, looking a mite crestfallen given his long-held belief that there’s nothing like a good old barney to jazz up a campaign.

“You need blood on the blouse,” Ned once remarked as he recalled his many electoral jousts with political opponents and party colleagues in Cork East over the years but so far in this Euro election campaign no one has taken up Ned’s challenge for a bout of verbal fisticuffs.

Unlike Fine Gael rivals, Seán Kelly and Colm Burke, who have been sparking off each other for the last few weeks, Ned has failed to provoke any major rebukes with an early statement denying a rift with Brian Crowley being greeted with a stony silence. True, he did manage to provoke some comments from Colm Burke when he suggested that he would be happy to have a nuclear power station on his farm at Ballylough but the nuclear option wasn’t exactly proving a talking point on the Kildorrery Road yesterday.

“No bother” vied with “No problem” as the mantra of the day from voters as Ned, accompanied by local cumann chairman, Pat O’Sullivan, canvassed the mixture of older cottages, newer bungalows and occasional farmhouses in search of a vote.

There were shades of the famous Seven Days programme with Neil Blaney in Donegal in the 1960s as Pat identified the political genealogy of every house but the anticipated fireworks at a Sinn Féin home failed to materialise when it turned out no one was in.

Ned laughed heartily when he was asked if he would be happy to have Brian Crowley as his substitute. While’s he’s bold enough to predict that he will hit 12 per cent on polling day, he’s canny enough to know that this election is beyond him.

“Crowley had too good a start,” he remarked philosophically before Pat O’Sullivan mentioned that a woman had been in Glanworth earlier this week asking voters their intentions for an Irish Times opinion poll.

"If she was doing her opinion poll just in Glanworth, I'd be elected – sure I'd have 50 per cent of the vote," he declared before departing in his 05 wine coloured Mercedes with the same exhortation to The Irish Timesthat he gave to every voter. "Do your best for me".