Blueshirts tickled pink over Fidelma rogue Maree tally

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

The Blueshirts are a mischievous bunch.  And when it comes to ‘getting one over’ on Fidelma Healy Eames, Fine Gael in Galway stops at nothing.

But the party went beyond the call of duty to embarrass her on the day of the marriage referendum count, in Leisureland on Saturday.

As the various boxes were being opened and tallied, it became apparent that the vote would be carried, by over 60%.

Once the result was secure, all FG eyes turned to the Maree boxes, to see how prominent No campaigner Fidelma, a former party member, would do in her own backyard.

They were getting impatient. The city tallies were in; so too Connemara. But there was no sign of the Maree vote.

And so one FG latchico took it upon himself to draw up an imaginary tally for Maree, just in case the Maree box was missed by the tallymen.

Obviously in this ‘bogus’ FG tally for the Maree box, there was a resounding Yes.

That’ll make Fidelma scarlet, they thought. The chuckling from the Blue-shirts at their scheming was infectious – they couldn’t contain themselves at their deviousness.

Then the Maree tally arrived; the real tally, not the one made-up to mortify Fidelma.

And it showed a majority of people in Maree voted in favour of the proposal. One Maree box was 60% Yes, and the second was 64% Yes.

As it turned out, the real tally had a higher Yes than the Fine Gaelers had dreamt up in their rogue referendum tally for Maree.

Oh, how they guffawed.

But with over 20,000 No voters in Galway West, will Fidelma have the last laugh by converting the Nos into ‘number ones’ at the next General election?

Perfect pink vote

There was much guffawing a few weeks back, too, when Niall Ó Tuathail announced his candidacy in the Galway West constituency in the next general election.

‘Niall who?’, they asked, as he declared his intentions at the TV3 Vincent Browne constituency debate from Galway Bay Hotel.

Well they know who he is now: O’Toole was the co-ordinator of the Yes Equality campaign in Galway, which this week basks in the glory of delivering a resounding Yes in the marriage equality referendum. He, too, may be laughing along with Fidelma if he can convince some of the 200 plus Yes Equality canvassers to knock on doors for him next year.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.