Cllr Owen Hanley nominates himself for a Mayor’s Award!

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Usually, there’d be a shortlist of nominees for the Mayor’s Awards before the actual winner is unveiled but this year it was done arseways.

City Councillor Owen Hanley, (Social Democrat) tweeted last week that he had received a “wonderful surprise”, that he was “nominated for a Mayor’s Award”.

“The winners have already been given out but even being nominated is touching,” he said.

He congratulated the winners, and thanked Mayor Mike Cubbard (Ind), “who always supports hardworking volunteers and community activists”.

Apart from doing it in reverse – announcing the winner and then revealing the short-list – what’s odd about this nomination is that city councillors tend not to be included in the Mayor’s Awards shortlist.

It’s not that councillors don’t do things that merit consideration for awards; they do. It’s just that what they do to merit awards tends to be voluntary work, associated with their involvement in politics and the community they represent.

Anyway, Cllr Hanley’s “surprise” that he had been nominated for a mayor’s award seems a bit disingenuous. That’s because, according to the application form, Cllr Hanley self-nominated for the award.

The name ‘Owen Hanley’ appears in the application form under two sub-headings; “nominee details” and “nominator details”. So, he was both nominee and nominator.

The application, received by the Council just before midnight on March 1, then details the work of Galway Pride, a voluntary organisation that organises the gay pride parade in Galway City, and a full week of events around it. It is the longest-running pride parade in Ireland, run by a committee of volunteers of which Owen Hanley is a member.

A City Hall source said the nomination certificates were, naturally enough, sent to the nominees as nominated by the nominators.

Maybe Owen Hanley filled out the form in error. Perhaps he meant to nominate Galway Pride and not himself, ‘Owen Hanley’. That might explain his ‘surprise’ on Twitter at being nominated for an award he in fact nominated himself for.

It’s just as well he didn’t win, because there could’ve been an almighty tug-of-war between himself and the Galway Pride committee over who would get the €500 cash prize, and the specially commissioned commemorative trophy given to award winners.
For more Bradley Bytes, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.