PR people’s numbers don’t necessarily always add up

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

Mathematics wasn’t many people’s favourite subject at school. But the way organisations – and their PR people in particular – exaggerate headcounts of the numbers of people who attended certain events in Galway is quite embarrassing.

At least for sporting occasions, we get the true figures.

Galway GAA announced the attendance publicly over the sound system at Pearse Stadium during last Summer’s Connacht football final, for example. And the office at Ballybrit collate the number of tickets of punters who clicked through the turnstiles for each day of the Galway Races.

Good, bad or indifferent, they are numbers you can believe in. Other events, though, are less credible.

There was one year there we were told 400,000 people visited the Christmas Market at Eyre Square. FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND.

That’s 80,000 people more than the entire population of Iceland. Multiply the population of Leitrim by 12 and it still wouldn’t add up to that. So forgive us for being sceptical. But is there an element of double-counting going on?

That number apparently had jumped to 600,000 for the Christmas just gone. Maybe the locals are all breeding like rabbits after sampling the kangaroo burgers.

Then there’s the Galway 2020 clap-off for the judges at the Docks a few months back.

Organisers suggested there were 2,000 people there to wave off the Capital of Culture judges but anyone who had access to the internet and a calculator could see there was max, 500 people, not four times that, at the event.

And then there was Seafest, which we were led to believe was attended by “more than 60,000” people.

Leaving aside that 60,000 sounds a little bit generous, how many “more than 60,000” were there though? Did the counter get to 60,000 and just give up counting then, and said ‘sure, more than will do’?

Finian eyes the future as Bertie bounces back

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Michael D Higgins should remember that as he contemplates whether or not to seek a second term as President of Ireland.

Tuam-born-Dublin-based Independent Minister, Finian McGrath, this week said he’d like to see a presidential election in 2018.

Finian said he wants Independents in the Dáil to facilitate a non-party candidate to run for the Áras. One wonders who, other than himself, he had in mind?

Meanwhile, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s reputational rehabilitation continued this week as he reappeared on the national airwaves. The Bert was on Seán O’Rourke’s RTÉ Radio One programme to talk about the Northern Ireland power-sharing debacle on Wednesday.

That November motion passed unanimously by Fianna Fáil’s Dublin Central members, calling for Bertie Ahern to be readmitted to the party, all of a sudden began to make sense: the once Teflon-Taoiseach wants to become the next Polytetrafluoroethylene President.

Watch your back, Michael D, watch your back.

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