the final week of campaigning. To be fair to Bacik, she has a long and admirable track record of campaigning on issues of civil liberties, including abortion rights, same sex marriage, and the scandal of Mother and Baby Homes. She lives in the constituency and was a high profile Senator and former European election candidate. The by-election saw a very solid campaign for Sinn Féin’s Lynn Boylan who – although she did not win – ran a positive, progressive campaign in a difficult constituency for the party, with a sharp focus on the most pressing issues, particularly housing and consolidating the party’s support here. Boylan forced the issue of housing to the centre of the by-election debate and this has put further pressure on the government parties. Not long ago, it would have been difficult to imagine Sinn Féin contending for a seat in such a Fine Gael stronghold. However, at the first count, Lynn Boylan had a total of 4,245 first preference votes – 15.8% of the total vote – and retained the breakthrough support won by sitting Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews in last year’s general election. In the working class areas of the constituency, Lynn dominated. In the end, she was eliminated on the eighth count with a total of 5,237 votes which is very positive for Chris Andrews holding his seat at the next general election. The result is a hammer blow to Fine Gael as this was a seat held by the party in a constituency where they came close to taking two seats in the General Election. For Fine Gael now to be without a TD in what has always been a
Boylan forced the issue of housing to the centre of the by-election debate and this has put further pressure on the government parties
• Fine Gael candidate James Geoghegan with leader Leo Varadkar
major Fine Gael stronghold is a severe setback for Leo Varadkar’s leadership. This remember is the constituency of former Fine Gael leaders Garret Fitzgerald and John A Costello. The party now drops to 34 seats in the Dáil, behind the 37 for Sinn Féin and 37 for Fianna Fáil.
• Eoghan Murphy
• Kate O’Connell
JIM GIBNEY takes us through a polling day odyssey as he helped get the Sinn Féin vote out for the Dublin Bay South election
Hope and history in Dublin Bay South “You can’t miss the house, Jim. There’s a poster of Lynn above the front door”, Sam said. But, I first had to find the house. It was in Mackin Street which I eventually found via Pearse Street, named after Padraig Pearse who led the 1916 Rising. It induced historical meanderings. Pearse Street was formerly known as Brunswick Street and it was there, in April 1920, an intense and lengthy gun battle took place between the IRA and the Black and Tans during which several people died. As I turned into Mackin Street, I could see Mount Street Bridge, the site of another huge bat-
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tle during Easter Week, between the Volunteers of 1916 and the British Army, during which the British lost heavily. On this street, there is the Pearse Centre in the former family home of Patrick and Willie, and beside it one of Dublin’s soup kitchens – what an ironic contrast of history. My reminisces came to a welcome end when I spotted Lynn Boylan’s poster as described by Sam. And he was right, you couldn’t miss the house, with the striking poster of Lynn, former MEP and now Seanadoir, carefully placed for maximum impact on passers-by. I find that about Sam, when it comes to exac-
titude and getting details right – especially details about elections. He has qualities I met in his recently deceased father when we used to meet, when Sam and his brothers were children and his parents, Joe and Edna, were finding their feet in Belfast, a city at war, in the mid ‘70s, following Joe’s deportation from England. When I see Sam Baker at election time, I relax and I am particularly relaxed if I see him in the company of Peter Lynch. They are a powerful double-act, who provide outstanding leadership on many fronts, particularly when it comes to anything to do with
ISSUE NUMBER 3 – 2021 - UIMHIR EISIÚNA 3 anphoblacht
