The Healy-Raes were seen as great gas. But there is little funny about their politics |
The Healy-Raes first appeared on the national scene nearly three decades ago, during the 1997 general election. Jackie, for decades Fianna Fáil’s machine man supreme in Kerry, had been denied the chance to run for the Dáil after the retirement of a sitting TD. He took the rejection badly and ran as an Independent, or rather as “Independent Fianna Fáil”.
Squat, becapped, ruddy-faced and largely indecipherable to non-Kerry speakers, the sophisticates from headquarters didn’t believe he could possibly get elected, not least because, as one of them subsequently remarked, it looked like he combed his hair with a pork chop. But Jackie’s singular presentation belied the formidable combination of a keen political intelligence and an ability to connect with voters. His campaign began to take off. It became a thing for young Kerry women to kiss him (yes). A staffer was sent down to investigate. “This f**ker,” he reported back after a night on the tiles in Killarney with the candidate, “is going to get elected.”
Jackie did indeed get elected in 1997, and went on to cut a deal to support the minority government of Bertie Ahern in return for various promises for public spending in his constituency. In a speech announcing his support for Ahern as taoiseach in the Dáil, Jackie enumerated the demands for his constituency which he had been promised would be looked after by the incoming government – including a replacement for the Pretty Polly tights factory, a new pier for Cromane, the resumption of live cattle exports, cheaper car insurance – before concluding with some spirit: “Do not write me off, I am warning you!”
It has been long rumoured around Leinster House that the two were not especially close, and Michael was said to be interested in joining the Enda Kenny-led........