Late call-up rankles FF’s rank and file

Fianna Fail is going into this week’s election, split down the middle in the new Roscommon/Galway constituency – over the late addition of a second candidate to the ticket.

The party had first nominated Strokestown’s Eugene Murphy as their sole candidate – but then in the last minute they added former Roscommon goalkeeper Shane Curran.

That has seen a clear division within the Fianna Fail ranks in Roscommon, with many grassroots members feeling that Murphy has been badly treated by the party.

All of this follows a series of fraught Fianna Fail meetings in the constituency over the past few months at which former bye-election candidate Cllr Ivan Connaughton from Athleague and Cllr Rachel Doherty, daughter of the late Justice Minister Sean Doherty, openly clashed.

It ended up with neither of them being on the ballot paper.

Curran has been somewhat of a controversial addition to the Fianna Fail ticket in that it was assumed that Fianna Fail were going to run just one candidate in the three-seater.

Recently Curran caused some bemusement on an RTE discussion panel when he managed to include a political and religious reference to the GAA championship structure.

He said that football could not exist in 20 years’ time and the game might go the same way as the church and Fianna Fail unless there were radical changes.

The new constituency of Roscommon-Galway has independents Mick Fitzmaurice and Denis Naughten as odds-on favourites, joined by Fine Gael’s Maura Hopkins from Ballaghaderreen.

But there is a major push behind the Fianna Fail candidates in a desperate effort to try and win one seat in the constituency although many of the party faithful are not best pleased with the selection process.