Election 2024: Rural Life — Few want to engage on election in Macroom
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The sky above Macroom is in foul form.
Down at ground level, the weekly market is set up under white canvas roofs awaiting the deluge. There are a few people about in the town this morning, even fewer of whom want to engage about the election.
For the greater part, it might not be happening at all. There is also a dearth of election posters in the town, with the ESB poles only festooned out at the fringes. If this level of apathy is typical of attitudes in rural Ireland, the system better watch out.
Michael O’Sullivan didn’t think much of the television debate the other night. “They were like children,” he says wistfully. He is 79, born and bred in Ballyvourney but now exiled in Westmeath. He remembers how it used to be when elections hit a primal chord with the general public.
“They would be outside churches after mass, up on butter boxes, shouting about what they’d do and some of them would be great with the mic. We’ve gone very upmarket since those days,” he says.
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Campaigns matter, a huge cohort of people apparently make up their minds in the last week before voting, but none of it matters that much to O’Sullivan. He knows where his franchise is going.
He says:
He blames Fianna Fáil for the last recession, doesn’t appear to have much time for them. “They took away the Christmas bonus, they took €20 off my pension. The black curtain came down. We got back on our feet at a very expensive price due to Fianna Fáil,” he says.
So presumably he wouldn’t like to see the old civil war enemies heading back into government together?
“I would like to see Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government because there’s no way that Fine Gael is going to get an overall majority. The way they’re squabbling now it’s like in the Four Courts with the barristers. They eat the guts out of one another in court in front of the judge and when they’re outside they’re nearly kissing each other.”
With that, he’s gone just as the sky begins to weep.
Macroom like many towns in rural Ireland has seen major changes over the term of the outgoing government.
The biggest of those is the opening of the bypass, a godsend for those who regularly traverse the county bounds into Kerry, knocking up to half an hour off the journey. The town was notorious for the long queues of traffic that snaked out on both sides through the long main drag.
Those days are gone as are the initial fears that commerce might take flight also. The place is, to the greatest extent, rocking. Now seen as a long-reach commuter town for Cork City and its environs, it can’t claim to be left behind as some quarters of rural Ireland are.
Sure, there are issues as there are in lots of places, but Macroom to the greatest extent does reflect fully the twin totem polls of the State right now, a booming economy with some intractable problems that are impacting on many.
Brendan Sheridan is behind the counter at his stall in the market where he retails some choice olives between the showers. He lives in Clonakilty and for him there is one issue above all else in this election.
“Like a lot of people, I’ll never be able to own by own home,” he says. “It’s very hard to save, very hard. In Clon, the amount of housing is very tight and that does no good. It doesn’t bring anybody into the area.
Housing was one of the three main issues among respondents to the recent Irish Examiner/Ireland Thinks poll on rural Ireland. When asked what they would consider most important in a general election, the cost of living was followed by the state of healthcare with housing coming in third.
There is often a perception that housing is primarily an issue affecting the main conurbations across the State but it is having just as devastating an impact on all corners of rural Ireland. There is building going on, but it has been slow. To that extent, Macroom mirrors many other towns.
Jim Cooney is trying to tot up how many new houses are coming onstream at various places around the town and its environs. He is behind the counter at his second-hand bookshop in the town’s quaint arcade, The Mall.
“There is 96 new houses at one end of the town, another 30 on the Millstreet Road and another 16 down the other end of the town,” he says.
“All that is great but it will also mean that you have an awful lot more cars on the road around here and the schools will be under pressure from all sides.
“If there is one issue that should be addressed it’s parking. The town is flying and the bypass has made a big difference but we are victims of our own alleged success.
"They want us to go by bus but you can’t go by bus very often because public transport isn't what it should be. There are people coming into the town like they never did before and what is really missing is some proper planning.”
He cites the scenario at the local primary boys and girls schools where there is no link to walk between them, a bugbear for parents and pupils alike.
The issue around the schools is also mentioned by Olive O'Riordan as she walks across the square, her messages done for the morning.
“We do need that link between the schools,” she says. “This is a great town for many things but if you want to rear your children this is where you want to be.”
Among the attributes to the community she cites Sullane Haven for older people who receive the optimum care and assistance.
“As for the election the one thing I’d be looking for both for the town here and nationally is improvements in the mental health sector which I work in myself,” she says.
She is a psychotherapist and part of her work involves engaging with some of the international protection applicants who reside in the former Riverside Park Hotel on the Killarney Road.
The hotel is now being used as a direct provision centre and a former hotel The Victoria, is being used to house Ukrainian refugees.
Accommodating those fleeing war and persecution, along with others whose applications to remain require processing, has become a hot topic this year, particularly in rural Ireland.
In the recent Examiner poll a total of 72% of respondents indicated that immigration would play a role in shaping their vote, but it ranked only sixth out of the seven most important issues cited, with climate change coming in seventh.
Olive, who also chairs the local family resource centre, does not detect any negative sentiment towards the new arrivals in Macroom.
“We’ve had excellent support from the HSE and different agencies involved,” she says. “They are lovely people and the Riverside is brilliant. They are actually a benefit for the town.”
Jim Cooney agrees. “It’s absolutely fine,” he says. “Up to a dozen of them in the Riverside go out every morning helping with the Tidy Towns. They are very popular. There is no negativity towards them or the Ukrainians in the old Victoria.”