Grealish has his cake – and eats it

Chris Elwood, the manager of Coco Café along Salthill Prom, hands Noel Grealish a brown envelope.

Independent Senator Gerald Craughwell erupts laughing. Independent Galway County Councillor Thomas Welby is sniggering and close to tears. “The Tribune would have to be here to see that,” chuckles Grealish. All above board, they stress.

It’s lunchtime Friday and the trio meet to refuel ahead of a canvass of Salthill. Grealish wants a blueberry muffin. “We’ve a strawberry and vanilla one, you’d like that,” says Mr Elwood.

Craughwell wants a pie. Any pie. “With a lash of cream,” he says.

They tear into the cakes, washed down by coffee. It’s like they’ll never eat again.

In fairness, Craughwell and Grealish have had an early start.

The Independent Galway West TD’s phone has been hopping since 3.30am when a cavalcade of Traveller caravans set up an illegal encampment at Galway Airport in the heart of his Carnmore base. There’re 20 missed calls and nine voicemails on his mobile. Locals aren’t impressed. But by late afternoon, the Traveller families have moved to City Hall.

Craughwell had an early start, too. The Salthill-native left Dublin at 6am to support Grealish on the campaign trail. “He’s just an incredibly decent man,” he says. He adds Grealish has helped the fellow Galway man since he was elected to the Seanad last year.

Leaving for Leisureland, to meet canvassers, Grealish mentions aloud he has to go to the funeral of a friend whose father passed away.

At Rockbarton Road, former mayor and Independent Galway City Councillor, Terry O’Flaherty awaits. She takes a woolly hat off and asks about her hair. “Is it okay?”

Grealish declines the offer of a hat. “They don’t recognise me with the hat on,” he says. He repeats this later when a woman in a BMW stops and summons him. “Now didn’t I tell you they know me without the hat?”

In fairness, nearly everyone he meets knows him. And those that don’t know him, instantly warm to him.

Grealish wouldn’t get as warm a welcome at home as he did on the first door. The middle-aged woman’s eyes light up when she sees him. “Oh, there’s my man,” she says, giving him a bear hug. “I thought I’d have missed you.”

He declines the offer of tea and agrees to bring her on that trip to the Dáil he’d promised before if he’s re-elected. “That wasn’t pre-arranged,” he insists.

But this is ‘Bobby Molloy country’, and so the reception for the former Progressive Democrats member is genuinely friendly.

It’s only lukewarm at one door in a leafy cul de sac, though. He won’t give you number one, says O’Flaherty.

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