Despite the winter chill, the St Nicholas’ market in Galway city heaves with people, as tourists and locals help themselves to artisan cheeses and vegetarian curries.
On a different day, the Churchyard Street market is exactly the sort of place where you might expect to find Catherine Connolly, pushing her bicycle up the cobbled street with a wicker basket at her side ready to be filled with organic vegetables and handmade soaps.
But on this day, as her campaign to become the next Irish president enters the finishing stretch, she is nowhere to be seen.
Galway is safe and, for now at least, the Áras hopeful has more important places to be.
RM Block
Like many of the market traders on Saturday, Moycullen potter Cormac O’Neill is planning to vote for Connolly.
It is not simply his support for the Galway woman and her policies that has formed this decision, but also his dislike for the other candidates and the way that the main parties have approached this campaign.
“The Fianna Fáil candidate was a stooge and I don’t think Fine Gael are really interested in the presidency, they just threw somebody in,” he says. “He [Jim Gavin] was put in to get the triple lock [removed]. He is a military man, he is not a politician. He has no background in anything else except for the GAA, and if they [Fianna Fáil] think that the GAA was ever going to swing a presidential election, they are wrong.
“That shows Micheál Martin’s short-sightedness and lack of contact with the regular people.”
For O’Neill, who wears a Palestinian keffiyeh to keep him warm at his stall, the candidates’ stance on international issues has been critical to his voting decision. “I like Catherine Connolly. I like her policies, I like her positions – on most things, not on everything. And I don’t like the other candidates. It is about their politics. It’s personal as well but it’s mainly about their politics,” he says. “At the moment. I think that it is really important to have someone with a clear position on international situations, such as Gaza. Catherine has communicated that to me and the other candidate hasn’t.”
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While Tuam native Cillian Ryan also plans to vote for Connolly, he sees her as “the best of a bad lot”.
“I saw Jim Gavin and the scandal with the tenant, and that ruled him out for me. Heather Humphreys doesn’t seem to have much in terms of answers, as far as I can tell. It [voting for Connolly] is the best of a bad lot,” he says. “I am from Galway, but that wouldn’t factor into the decision much. But I have seen her around and she seems like a nice person. I haven’t seen too much from the other one [Heather Humphreys] to change my mind.”
Local trader Oisín Roth says he will also be voting for Connolly in this week’s election. Roth says his opinions on fox hunting and animal welfare has informed his decision. Earlier in the election campaign, Humphreys was questioned about a letter regarding an alleged incident of animal cruelty involving a Monaghan farmer, which her constituency office forwarded to the Department of Agriculture. Speaking at the time, Humphreys said she did not add any personal representation to the letter and also stated that she abhors animal cruelty.
“My vote will be for Catherine Connolly. I am not in favour of right-wing politicians, I know she [Heather Humphreys] is centre-right, but still, I know what Catherine Connolly is like and she has always been very proactive for Galway,” says Roth. “I have spoken to her myself about local issues and she is always very approachable and very helpful. She has the same opinions as me on a lot of issues. I think I’ve learned a lot from the campaign. I wouldn’t really have known who Heather Humphreys was before.
“But my mind is still open and it can be changed,” he says. “I would like to hear Heather Humphreys doing more than discrediting Catherine Connolly, putting her own ideas forward and saying what she believes in, rather than just attacking.”
