He wakes screaming

E LIES THERE, in the quiet, pre-dawn darkness, with the sweat cooling on his big, baldy, robot head. Over and over again the moment plays in his mind. He stands before the Irish people, proud, confident, mere days away from becoming the President of Ireland. He is master of all he surveys, a leader, a man destined for greatness.
And then a soft Derry accent quietly says, “I have to say, you’re in deep, deep trouble,” and it all comes tumbling down.
Poor auld Seán Gallagher - from President-to-be to has-been in about 20 minutes of prime-time television that revealed he’s nothing more than a Fianna Fáil bagman, a mobile Galway tent. And he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for one meddling Martin McGuinness and one gutsy punter, Glenna Lynch.
The people of this wee state had a choice. Mere months after the election in February we could have taken a step back to the world of mysterious accounting practices, cash-bulging and cheque-filled envelopes, the gombeen men and cute hoorism. But, at the last minute, after a quick glance into the abyss, we turned away, electing the mostly harmless and always charming Mickey D instead.
Something to celebrate in that, and in Martin’s performance overall: the highest republican vote since the 1920s, third place in a statewide election for the first time.
But in the Carney household we celebrate a different kind of success: Fine Gael’s worst election performance in the history of the state. Worst election performance. Ever. Six point four per cent of the vote. Mitchell’s own family must have turned against him.
In Wicklow, where the party won three seats out of five in February, Mitchell polled 4.8%. In Mayo, the Taoiseach’s own constituency where they won four seats out of five and an eye-watering 65% of the vote just eight months ago, Gay Mitchell could just about scramble 9%.
Beaten into fourth place in 40 of the state’s 43 constituencies, hammered across all 26 counties (or was it 22, Gay?). Media reports indicate that Mitchell spent more than €700,000 on his campaign - that’s a little over six euro a vote. For a family who can trace our hatred of the Blueshirts back to the Civil War, this is like Christmas, Easter and the death of Michael Collins all rolled into one big celebration.
Before I go, some special mentions for a very special campaign.
Best newcomer: During the Frontline election debate I couldn’t help but notice this tweet from Ireland’s least funny satirist, Newton Emerson: “Dear Sinn Féin: When this election’s over, can we have the Internet back?” Dear Newton: Where you’re concerned, we’re still thinking about it.
This year was the first time online Sinn Féin activists (aka #shinnerbots to the Twitterati) seriously organised themselves, pushing the republican message across Twitter and owning Facebook, something noted a couple of times in the mainstream media. A big ‘maith thú, comrade’ to @nicolapking and the rest of the crew, ninjas who move like Jagger.
Most disappointing performance: Like most women in the Irish media, I have a bit of a girl-crush on Miriam O’Callaghan, probably the country’s finest broadcast journalist. But her chairing of the RTÉ Prime Time debate, her vicious personal attack on Martin, and her general desperate air to be as ‘controversial’ as Vincent Browne was well beneath her. When an English journalist friend of mine who has never had a good word to say about Shinners admits ‘she went a bit over the top’, you know a line’s been crossed.

Most determined Shinner-hating performance: Only one winner here after disappointing campaigns from Kevin Myers and Andrew Lynch. Step forward, Eoghan Harris, whose determined refusal to engage with reality gave me a chuckle every week. From claiming RTÉ is biased in favour of Sinn Féin(!), to using hilariously dodgy figures after the election to claim Martin’s campaign had been a failure, Eoghan never let the real world intrude on his analysis.
Oddest comment: Jody Corcoran of the Sunday Independent writing about the shape and mould of Martin McGuinness’s buttocks. The same man once fantasised in the paper about burying his face in the hair of a woman in front of him on the escalator. Risky to let him out unaccompanied, I would think.
Best new voter: Complete bias here. Pa Carney has voted in every election since 1961 - technically he also voted in 1957 but it wasn’t in his own name as he was under 18 at the time. A staunch Fianna Fáiler, he has voted the party ticket in every election or referendum, parting company only over EU treaties. In February, for the first time, he gave a transfer outside of Fianna Fáil, to us, I’m delighted to say, but he went one better last week and gave Martin McGuinness a Number 1.
Most valuable players: It’s one thing to spend half an hour of a Saturday sharing a smoke with some Shinners, huddled under a tree to escape a downpour, it’s another when those Shinners drove almost three hours to get there and face the same return journey. Whether it was Tyrone activists being soaked in Roscommon, Belfast ones unused to a big city getting lost in Dublin, or Derry ones who drove all of 20 minutes to Buncrana, a big go raibh míle to our friends in the North.