Pearce ‘Yes We Can’ Flannery learns how to kick some ass

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Some of you think we’ve been too hard on Fine Gael City Councillor, Pearce Flannery. But, we suspect, Pearce wouldn’t agree.

Pearce, a self-styled “coach, advisor, motivator”, on his website tells us: “Mediocrity is never acceptable”.

We couldn’t agree more. And it’s for that reason that we hold Pearce – and other politicians – to account.

So, when we give Pearce a little kick up the backside, we do it so as to remind him of his own philosophy – mediocrity is not acceptable.

In that same blog post, from 2012, Pearce is quite revealing about his attitude to promises.

Pearce, who is currently seeking election to Seanad Éireann, said: “Many people have trouble keeping promises to themselves. Even people who are great at keeping their promises to others have trouble with this.

“It’s easy to keep saying one thing and doing another, when your mind thinks that there will be no repercussions. This is the reason why if you need to change your mindset. You must learn to kick your own arse!”

And as Pearce knows, in Ireland, if you’re a politician and don’t master the skill of kicking your own arse, there’s always someone there willing to kick it for you.

Shinners at war

All is not well in Sinn Féin.

Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh was the last man standing in Galway West not to win a seat.

Trevor has less than solid Republican roots – he is ex-Labour – which means that he is disdainfully referred to as a ‘truce-aleer’ by the hardcore Shinners.

This is a snide reference to those who joined the Republican movement after the truce in the War of Independence.

Though he increased his share of the vote by about a third, and narrowly missed out on a seat, his opponents in the party – and they number quite a few – have resurfaced.

The urbanites in SF say Connemara-based Ó Clochartaigh shouldn’t have been on the ticket in the first place.

They argue a city candidate would have been better placed to take advantage of the retirement of city-based Brian Walsh (FG), and the implosion of Labour’s city-based candidate, Derek Nolan.

Maybe they’re right.

But in the aftermath of his election defeat, Trevor laid the blame elsewhere.

He said there was “a concerted effort by the national media to damage Sinn Féin, and I think it shied them (voters) from giving us a vote”. It’s hard to argue with that – The Irish Independent made no secret of its disdain for Sinn Féin.

Trevor added: “There is certainly a sense that ‘Slab’ Murphy, the Special Criminal Court and some economic stuff as well saw us drop 3% to 4% nationally in the last two weeks, and this affected the transfers we were getting . . .”

References to Sinn Féin’s association with Slab Murphy having damaged the party’s standing among the electorate are entirely accurate. But it does not sit well with the ‘whatever you say, say nothing’ militant wing of the party.

If they didn’t like him before, now they’ve more ammunition.

Watch out Trevor: the knives are out.

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