16 March 2005 Edition

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Getting the vote out in Navan

BY Justin Moran

"Numbers 120, 121, 123, 124, not 125, and the rest to 130," called local party activist Sinéad Maguire to the small group of Sinn Féin canvassers knocking doors in the dark last Friday night.

We were on the outskirts of Navan in a large working-class estate knocking on the doors of confirmed voters to ensure they had turned out to vote. In a row of ten houses, only one is not a Sinn Féin voter.

We were deep in Joe Reilly country.

People, initially suspicious and surprised to find a stranger knocking the door at half eight at night, became instantly warmer when we introduced ourselves.

"Sorry to disturb you, Joe Reilly asked us to drop by and make sure everybody in the house had been out to vote."

And house by house, the answers were recorded by Sinéad, striding down the middle of the road calling out numbers.

'All out in 121.' 'Going now in 122.' 'Gone this morning in 124.' 'All out but one in 123 and he's heading now.'

At the fast walk, slow run, habitual of rushed canvassers, we finished the almost 200 houses in under an hour before huddling round cars and cigarettes while Sinéad checked back with in the Navan office for further instructions.

As we waited, all that could be heard is the distant sound of Joe on a PA system in the next estate, urging voters to the polls, reminding them that every vote is needed.

The canvass team is a cross section of the Sinn Féin campaign in Meath. Half are locals, no strangers to Navan or taking on the Fianna Fáil machine in Meath's biggest town. They're the people who elected Joe Reilly and Anne Gibney in Navan last summer, who sent the first shockwaves of our success in 2002 with Joe's performance in Meath.

The other half are from Dublin, Wexford and Belfast, here to lend a hand, drive a car, knock a door and do their part for their comrades.

And then it was back into cars, the group splitting up, one car hurtling down the road to Johnstown, where the canvass team badly needed backup. Two cars headed further into Navan to wipe out (not literally) two small estates of between 30 and 50 houses.

Seán from Belfast found a house with four voters who'd forgotten that it was polling day. As we drove out of the estate, we saw the family spilling out the door, pulling on coats as they went.

This is the fearsome Sinn Féin machine — not an organism of metal, gears and electronics, but a collection of committed men and women taking time off work, getting someone to mind the kids and squeezing into a car to get the vote out in Meath, driven by what Bobby Sands called "the undauntable thought", the thought that says we're right.


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