On the canvass with Julia Carney

» Julia Carney

There is a Shinner school of thought that says canvassers from rival parties (especially Labour) should be chased from the doorsteps

TOMÁS knocks on his tenth door of the evening, carefully notes down the response, walks to the end of the driveway and then settles back against the wall.

The rest of us scurry about, knocking on doors, forcing leaflets through stubborn letter-boxes, warily eyeing yapping dogs and calling over the candidate when we get a real, live, honest-to-God voter at the door.

Fast as we can, more doors to knock, more roads to cover.

Come on, come on, faster, faster.

Open up, ye wee sod, I know you’re there. I can see you have Corrie on through the curtains.

And Tomás sits there quietly, resting.

I don’t know how old Tomás is but he’s not a young man. His health isn’t the best. He walks awkwardly and he has difficulty getting out of the car. He is in constant pain from his legs and his back aches when he’s been standing for long.

On Tuesday last, he canvassed and knocked on doors from 5pm to a quarter to nine. He’s out nearly every night.

He never complains. He’s often the one cracking jokes and he has a lore of local history so that I often come away from the evening’s canvass knowing something about the area I live in that I didn’t know that morning.

“Do you know so-and-so used to live down the road?” I’ll tell the apolitical flatmate, marvelling at the little gems of history on our doorstep.

Tomás keeps going. He does as much as he can and then he’ll quietly mutter something about having a bit of a rest and lean back against a convenient wall, face damp and red.

Five minutes. He won’t allow himself much more.

A quick breather, and then he’s up and off again, five-foot-something of quiet determination and of dedication to a cause and a party he has served since 1979.

Bobby Sands once wrote: “No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something.”

Maith thú, Bobby.

I’ll remember those words again this evening when I watch Tomás take a deep breath, summon up what Bobby called “the inner thing”, push himself up off the wall, adjust his grip on the clipboard, and march on to the next house.

Ar aghaidh linn.

THIS ELECTION marks a new experience for me. Having moved into a house in Dublin for the first time, Roisín and I are fair game for candidates or canvassers from other parties.

There is a Shinner school of thought that says canvassers from rival parties (especially Labour) should be chased from the doorsteps, their sins and faults thrown in their faces, their betrayals cast at their feet, and their souls cut raw with whipping from the contempt in your voice.

Dubs, eh? There’s just no cuteness in them.

Down in Cork, we’re a more subtle breed.

Now, admittedly, it would be rare that some innocent young Fine Gaeler would call to the door back home.

The Carneys were, and are, known far and wide as die-hard Fianna Fáilers going back to the 1920s. It’s a proud family boast that Fine Gael posters on our side of the road up to the school never last more than a single night.

But every now and again some naïve, eager young Blueshirt would be home from college and would innocently dander across the yard, where Pa Carney would be waiting in eager anticipation, like a fox watching the chickens march right into his den. He’d be doing everything but licking his lips.

“Keep them there as long as you can,” Pa would advise, eyes wild with devilment. “Blueshirts are like the scour in calves, but sure if they’re talking to one of us, they’re not infecting anyone else with their shite-talk.”

He had a genius for it, asking question after question, always looking interested, always engaged. All the time in the world to chat while the dinner went cold and the cows shuffled their legs, waiting to be milked.

“And come here to me,” he’d say. “There was something else I wanted to ask you about.”

After ten minutes or so they knew they were trapped, struggling weakly against invitations to come in for tea and a sit-down, earnestly insisting they had to be going but they could send something out in the post on that one, Mr Carney.

“Ah, now, to be honest, I don’t like the reading much,” Pa would insist, refusing to think of his well-thumbed collection of western novels and his subscription to the Farmer’s Journal.

“I never really had the knack for it and the eyes aren’t the best. Here, tell me though, can your man do anything about the price we’re getting for milk nowadays? It’s a living disgrace.”

Let that be the lesson to you, young Shinners, when you’ve a canvasser at the door. The longer they’re talking to us, the less chance they have to, as Pa Carney would put it, be giving the scour to anyone else.