Elaine Loughlin: A new rural political party cannot be polarised 

A narrative of the Greens coming to plant half the land and submerge the other half in bog water has been cultivated in a bid to galvanize support for a new political party — or possibly two.

But people living outside our cities and major towns are not one homogenous group that can be easily herded toward the ballot box.

While some may like to cling to an outdated image of dancing at the crossroads after a hard day on the bog, rural Ireland has long moved on from comely maidens milking and men with clay pipes.

Back in 2015, long before the pandemic lured a new wave of remote workers back to isolated parts, Prof Cathal O’Donoghue, who was then head of Teagasc’s Rural Economy and Development Programme, wrote in this paper that there is no one rural Ireland.

"Rather there is a rich diversity of different types of people, doing different things, with different interests and backgrounds; far from the stereotype.

"Rural Ireland is full of sophisticated, articulate people, highly connected both to the local place and globally, and with a multi-layered cultural richness," he wrote.

Census data released last week revealed that the population in every single county has increased since 2016. In the same period, those employed in the traditional rural practices of farming, forestry, and fishing dropped by 8% to just over 82,000. The data also shows that a third of all workers now do so from home for at least part of their week.

It maybe explains why the two separate groups — one led by Michael Fitzmaurice, and the other being spearheaded by Michael Collins, Mattie McGrath, and Richard O'Donoghue — that are now working to bring rural Independent politicians together are still a bit all over the shop.

While quick to announce the intention to establish a party that will be the voice of rural Ireland, neither grouping has produced any concrete policies.

When contacted this week, McGrath couldn't say whether the new party will actually be a party.

He suggested that the party, which could end up as more of a grouping or perhaps a hybrid of both, will appeal to rural voters who feel disenfranchised but will also aim to attract urban dwellers.

When it comes to policy the proposed party/grouping/hybrid hasn't agreed anything yet, but McGrath said they intend to have a list of core objectives.

"Our policies have yet to be fully agreed upon. They will be quite simple, but we have yet to agreed on them.

"We will have five to 10 core values that we will be bringing forward," McGrath said before stating that housing, emigration, farming, and bureaucracy around planning are areas that voters feel let down on.

McGrath added that the whip system has not worked in politics, so members of the new political entity will not be bound when it comes to voting, except perhaps around financial votes.

But overall, there is "broad agreement" and "huge interest", the Tipperary TD insisted.

Alternative party

Over in the alternative rural party camp, Fitzmaurice said he and a group of local councillors and others, who he does not want to name at this point, are currently working on policy documents across agriculture, housing, transport, balanced regional development, and health.

The Roscommon-Galway TD, who was on the verge of doing a deal with Enda Kenny back in 2016 as a member of the Independent Alliance, now sees the need to be a part of Government.

The only reason I would be involved in trying to do this is because I can see what the Greens are trying to achieve on the other side, we can shout and scream as Independents, but what else can we achieve?

He says 'it's not for the faint-hearted", but is serious in the endeavour and will not be standing in the next general election unless the party is established.

Having raised serious concerns around the proposed EU Nature Restoration Law that aims to restore 30% of degraded areas across the bloc, through rewetting, rewilding, and other means by 2030, Fitzmaurice says that agriculture will be "the big one".

But he admits that rural Ireland is not just about farming and other weighty items such as town and village planning policy will also have to be included.

Those looking to appeal to rural voters can look to the success of the Dutch farmers' movement that took 19% of the votes in elections in March.

But those living outside urban areas are a diverse group made up of conservative and liberal voices, atheists and pious Mass-goers, climate deniers, and climate activists.

Take Michael Collins' constituency of Cork South-West which includes some of the most rugged and isolated areas in the country. Much of the employment is based around fishing, agriculture, and tourism, but pharma, food, and the IT sectors also provide significant jobs.

Collins, who gained attention for his recent Dáil outburst after Green Party Junior Minister Pippa Hackett described him as an organic farmer (he is in fact a former organic farmer), topped the poll and is now hoping to establish a new rural party to take on the "green agenda" which he has said is suffocating rural Ireland.

Also representing the people of Cork South-West is Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns who, among other things, has campaigned to ban greyhound racing. Her views are completely at odds with Collins who, in a Dáil debate on the industry last year, said greyhound racing makes a "valuable contribution to a balanced regional economy".

Cairns first became involved in politics through campaigning for a repeal of the Eighth Amendment, but Collins has said he would never support abortion, and described it is "an old-fashioned, cruel cure that needs to be kept out of our country" ahead of the 2018 referendum.

Cairns also received more than half of all transfers when Green Party candidate Bernadette Connolly was eliminated in the 2020 general election, hardly a cohort Collins is going after judging by recent comments in which he warned of the Government's "cult-like obsession with climate change".

And yet both candidates had enough support to win a seat in the Dáil.

Interestingly, Cairns, while elected, got fewer first-preference votes than two other candidates, Fine Gael's Tim Lombard a dairy farmer, and Paul Hayes who ran for Sinn Féin, who would also have very different support bases.

Seamus Boland of Irish Rural Link believes that setting up a rural party would have to come from a groundswell of grassroots support, which he feels is not currently present.

"To create a movement from the ground up, you'd want a united approach with a lot of people involved. I think rural Ireland is much more complex."

Even if those hoping to create a new political party do manage to draft a consistent set of policy objectives, enticing the current set of Independent TDs on board will be another challenge.

The Healy-Rae brothers have already ruled out joining a rural party as has Wexford representative Verona Murphy.

Independents can sometimes wield significant power while still remaining free of the shackles of political parties, the key example being Tony Gregory, whose deal with Charles Haughey brought Fianna Fáil to power.

Not being associated with any one party is also a key selling point of Independents to voters, especially if they are running as single-issue candidates.

Of course, there are people living in rural Ireland who feel they are not represented, but creating a party to meet all of their differing expectations is an almost impossible task. For those trying to do it, the best of luck to them.