Your time is now!

Finally thanks to Pearse Doherty and Sinn Fein taking and winning a case that other political parties were to busy to do (or hadn’t thought it up themselves) the Government have been forced into moving the writ for a bye-election after 16 months.

For the next three weeks you will be plagued with canvassers from everywhere else getting very lost and not understanding a word you say.  (Donegal Slang can be consulted here).  You will have to give these fine people a wee glass of Football Special to wash down the Purdies.

The political correspondents will also be up in their droves and they are really looking forward to it! Maybe they and the Dublin based canvassers (and the Ministers in their mercs) can drop into the much recommended Harry’s for a dinner if they get lost on the canvass.

Now there are a lot of people that know nothing about Donegal politics who will be on a steep learning curve. Many of us will tune into Highland Radio from time to time, it’s a great station and I’m sure many’s a row and sharp question from Shaun Doherty will be heard.

Donegal is also a land of many newspapers including it’s own Sunday paper so I’m hoping for some fun in the papers in the next few weeks. (Cuttings, scans, gossip, pictures, canvass returns to tips @ mamanpoulet.com are very welcome!)

Your candidates will probably be all male with Barry O’Neill (FG) , Frank McBrearty (Labour) and Pearse Doherty (Sinn Féin) being selected already.  The real fun is in the Fianna Fáil selection convention, will we see the farce of  Pat ‘The Cope’ coming back to fight for the seat he departed? Or will Fianna Fáil resort to the celebrity candidate?  (Packie even if you had a chance you don’t want to go there – really you don’t.)

Maybe with the spotlight shone up at you people might understand the difficulties in living in the northwest of Ireland with the long journeys to access medical treatment, bad roads, under investment in infrastruture and the unemployment rate which has been much higher than most other places in Ireland most of the time.

The printing presses are probably going all night and the poles await their first posters.

Good luck to all who get to contest the election and those who get to vote, the rest of the nation who want their shot at democracy will be living vicariously through you.