Ulster man set to take on Dublin in senate bid
Jeffrey Dudgeon in Trinity College Dublin this morning ..Picture Date : Thursday March 31st, 2011..Photo credit should read: Julien Behal/PA Wire
JEFFREY Dudgeon may be used to knocking doors in south Belfast to canvass on behalf of the Ulster Unionist Party, but Dublin doors are an unknown quantity to Orange feet.
The postboxes in Dublin may still bear King George’s crest of arms, but there’s more than just a layer of green paint in people’s minds when it comes to Britishness.
Mr Dudgeon has travelled a long road, politically, from involvement with a communist party as a young man, taking a groundbreaking case to the European courts which saw homosexuality legalised in Northern Ireland, to working for UKUP leader Robert McCartney when he was MP.
But wooing the diverse electorate of 55,000 Trinity graduates is a new challenge.
The ballot is 100 per cent postal and voting slips are being returned to the election office from across the world. The count will take place on April 27 in the Public Theatre in Front Square.
Mr Dudgeon studied at Magee College in Londonderry when it was part of Trinity College and also studied at the Dublin campus.
Last Thursday I shadowed the gay rights campaigner and author as he travelled south on the campaign trail.
Starting out on the bleary-eyed 6.50am train from Belfast, we arrived at the political institution that is Buswell’s Hotel opposite the Irish Parliament at 9.30am.
This was the only chance that the 18 candidates got to eyeball each other and debate together in public.
There were originally 20 candidates but two dropped out – one, Karin Dubsky, because she is not an Irish citizen, and Francis Donnelly, as he is hoping to get to the Seanad through the panel system.
Mr Dudgeon welcomed the news as “two less Shane Ross clones to deal with”.
The election of former journalist Shane Ross to the Dail in the recent general election is thought to have sparked big interest in the gap he leaves as a former senator for Trinity.
At the last election in 2007 there were just 11 candidates.
The debate is being recorded by RTE for its Today programme with Pat Kenny, but is held in a small downstairs room in the grand hotel.
Wheelchair-bound candidate Roseleen McDonagh is unable to attend and instead speaks via a pre-recorded message.
Nervous candidates are pacing around the entrance when we arrive.
Fermanagh-born David Martin, who has been working as a teacher in Dublin for most of his lifetime, is standing for the fourth time.
He’s somewhat cynical about the poll, telling me: “It’ll be Norris in with 10,000 votes, then Ivana Bacik and the next person who gets 1,000 votes.”
Two of the youngest candidates – youth worker William Priestley and trainee barrister Maeve Cox are next to arrive.
Former Progressive Democrat Fiona O’Malley also arrived into the entrance hall. In 2007 she was appointed to the Seanad by then taoiseach Bertie Ahern but this time she must win votes.
Meanwhile, there are the more confident contenders such as media commentator Tony Williams, who is in the enviable position of having outgoing Shane Ross’s backing, as well as the slick Marc Coleman.
The overall feel of the candidates is of a collection of some of the most eccentric people in Ireland, but having read the small mountain of leaflets about them that I have received as a Trinity graduate, I know that they are in fact some of the brightest minds on the island.
The candidates were organised into panels along with the 20 competing for the national universities of Ireland’s three seats.
They are not given an easy ride, with not only RTE anchor Pat Kenny grilling them but also a newspaper journalist and a comedian chipping in.
Outgoing senator and Trinity law lecturer Ivana Bacik was among the first panel for interrogation along with former Belfast Sinn Fein councillor Eoin O’Broin, who is going for one of the national university’s seats.
Both were immediately criticised as failed Dail candidates, as both had recently run for the southern lower house.
Mr Dudgeon told the audience that he feels it is time that a Northern Ireland unionist is represented for the first time since 1922.
Irish senators are paid a basic salary of e70,000 plus expenses, but this could be the last chance for a Northern Ireland unionist to enter the Republic’s upper chamber, as taoiseach Enda Kenny has promised to hold a referendum on abolishing it.
Mr Dudgeon has been backed by a diverse range of figures from across the spectrum including former deputy editor of the Irish Times Dennis Kennedy, senator Eoghan Harris, Ulster Unionist health minister Michael McGimpsey, author and columnist Ruth Dudley Edwards, Professor Roy Foster, former Alliance Party chief executive Gerry Lynch, former Northern Ireland Human Rights Commissioner Daphne Trimble, the University of Ulster professor of politics Arthur Aughey and historian Gordon Lucy.
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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