Sinn Féin look set to be the big winners in our patched-up European constituency

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

One of the things I have never been able to understand about American professional sport is the concept of the moveable franchise.

There was a baseball team that was based in New York that were known as the Brooklyn Dodgers. A commercial decision by its owners saw the team transfer to the west coast to become the LA Dodgers. You wonder what the fans who had followed the team in Brooklyn do – did they remain loyal even though the franchise had moved 3,000 miles or did they begin supporting another New York team.

On this side of the Atlantic, such a stunt would be unthinkable. In Britain, some of its professional football teams have been global brands but there is still an iron-clad connection with the place where they originated. Over here in Ireland, sense of place is cemented more rigidly still into the public consciousness – if you are born in Mayo, it is highly unlikely you will be spotted wearing a Supermacs geansaí anytime soon.

I have huge difficulties with the manner in which the four European constituencies were carved into three ‘super constituencies’. The Dublin constituency is an acceptable compromise. A third of the population live there. You get a sense of its geography, that it is a logical entity. As for the other two, it’s just bunkum. The South and East consists of ten counties – the five of Munster and five from south Leinster. And then there is Midlands North-West which has all the organisation and consistency and logic of a blob of goo.

Here we have fifteen counties from three provinces. Sure Ireland is a small country. But still it just does not make sense. There might be a marginal case for including Longford on the basis of it once being half of the Longford-Roscommon constituency. But even then it was an unhappy and heterogenous alliance. Albert Reynold’s chief fixer Mickey Doherty pointed to the River Shannon as being the Berlin Wall between both sides of the constituency. His famous description of it was: “Votes don’t swim”.

There might be a marginal case also for Offaly, which at least borders Galway. But what about Meath, Louth, Kildare and Laois. Why not throw in Wexford, the Isle of Man and Rockall while we are at it.

The Greens had a suggestion – and it was shared by others – that Ireland should be treated as a single constituency with the 11 seats decided in a national contest. That, to me, would be an attractive option and would mark the European elections out as different and distinct from other elections. I’m sure there would be a fair geographic spread of candidates and each would have a mandate of representing Ireland, not a strange amalgam of random counties that you have difficulty getting your head around.

The decision is made and we have to live with it. Midlands North West. It does exactly what it says on the tin. Confuses. Exasperates. Muddles up!

In any instance, it will still give us an election. And if there is one thing about a popularity contest, it will always attract interest and intrigue, even if it’s for the chair of the local residents’ association.

Even without the senseless new constituency arrangement, a European election is harder to predict than general elections. The reason is slightly counterintuitive. It’s because so darned little hangs on them. Unlike a general election, where the people is choosing who they would prefer to run the country, Europe remains a topic of spectacular boredom and intense indifference to most people.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.