DAN KEENAN on the canvass with Bairbre de Brún: There are no no-go areas for Sinn Féin now. Ten years ago, it would have been different
WELL-PLACED to retain her European seat, Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún says she is taking nothing for granted.
Her quietly efficient campaign has taken her to South Down which sends an SDLP MP to Westminster, and two unionists, two Sinn Féin and two SDLP members to the Stormont Assembly. It is as mixed and integrated as Northern Ireland seems capable of allowing.
Two decades ago this area’s politics were marked by a clear fight between the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists. Peace process politics means things have changed. The DUP has carved out a role for itself at UUP expense while Sinn Féin has grown from a position of rank outsider to one of a central player.
Kilkeel, like other villages around the Mourne foothills, is flag-flying unionist and surrounded by a nationalist hinterland. DUP Minister Jeffrey Donaldson was raised just up the road in Balinran. It seems an unlikely stop-off point for a republican MEP and her party’s president Gerry Adams but these days there are no no-go areas for Sinn Féin.
Their destination is a fish processing plant next to the picturesque harbour with its painted trawlers nodding peacefully at their moorings.
Rooney Fish employs about 45 Bulgarians and produces high quality seafood products for the rest of Europe and the Middle East. It’s here that the business and politics of the EU get real.
The proprietor talks about rate-capping, exports, the cost of freezing a kilo of prawns and quotas. Things aren’t easy at the minute, but he’s quietly confident nonetheless.
De Brún chats easily and knowledgeably in these situations, she’s good at the one-to-ones. “Things shouldn’t have to go through Westminster to the EU,” she says and everyone agrees. She pushes the benefits of working through Stormont Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew – it’s Sinn Féin’s joined-up service. With photographs taken and handshakes completed, the job is done and it’s off to the next rendezvous.
Earlier, the canvass team dropped in on Longstone GAA club where locals had turned out to meet and greet and pose for a photograph alongside Gerry Adams. They formed a football team line-up for the camera under the picture commemorating the United Irishmen and the image of the Sacred Heart.
A short distance away across the dry stone walls and the clumps of whins is the Glassdrumman club, now globally renowned for winning RTÉ's Celebrity Bainisteoir.
This is not so much a party election canvass as social networking. Getting out to meet people is the purpose, there are no speeches, no banners, no loudspeakers on roof-racks. There is more talk about the weather than about party politics.
Newcastle’s refashioned Main Street is the scene for the more traditional approach. Party leader, the candidate, the town’s Assembly member and local volunteers, some of them very young, head up the street, election leaflets in hand. They mix and chat easily.
Some respond with enthusiasm. But not everyone here is a nationalist. Those less keen on the idea of Irish unity react with civility rather than hostility.
No leaflet is handed back, no offered handshake is declined, nobody ducks away from the stare of the camera.
Ten years ago it would have been different.