This article is from page 16 of the 2011-02-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
SINCE moving to Ennis in the early ‘70s he hasn’t missed an election count – he won’t miss the action of February 26 either, even if his beloved Fianna Fáil are in grave danger of being usurped from poll position in Clare General Election politics. Once a soldier, always a soldier, who doesn’t dessert his post and all that.
Frank Conway has seen it all, from being in the Ard Fheis audience the famous RDS day when Paddy Hillery told the world that they “can have Kevin Boland, but you can’t have Fianna Fáil” to facing down Charles Haughey when on the National Executive and voting against the expulsion order of Des O’Malley from the party.
“Elections are great,” he says, “because they’re a bit of a blood sport and from Council to General Elections I’ve experienced a fair few,” he adds, rolling back the years to when this love affair with the machinations of politics took hold.
“I was living in Shannon,” recalls Frank “and my friend Paddy Monaghan ran for Fianna Fáil in the 1967 local elections. Paddy was a character and he was chairman the Community Association and somehow talked his way into getting an audience with Lyndon Johnson. He called himself the Mayor of Shannon – this was way before there was Town Commission in Shannon – and it worked and he met Johnson in the Rose Garden in White House.
“We ran a unique campaign, printing leaflets saying ‘Shannon Needs Representation’. We were ahead of our time really and I was Paddy’s advisor – his Henry Kissinger. I remember we went up to Ennis to an election rally and Frank Collins, who was secretary of the Comhairle Dáil Ceanntair introduced Paddy by saying ‘now we have good Galway man Paddy Monaghan’. We were fecked after that.
“And at the convention a delegate from Sixmilebridge said ‘that Monaghan from Shannon is not a true Fianna Fáil man, I saw him reading The Ir ish Independent ’. After the election count we were going back to Shannon through Clarecastle and we threw the election leaflets out the window. I can still see them fluttering in the wind.”
However, even in defeat Conway’s interest was ignited. There were his 20 years on the National Executive, being a founder member of the Sean Lemass Cumann in Shannon that survives to this day, out on the canvas with Sylvie Barrett, Brendan Daly, Dr Bill Loughnane and Tony Killeen.
“I remember Conor Cruise O’Brien saying that Dr Bill was ‘a bogoak Irishman’. Dr Bill responded by saying ‘you can tell Conor Cruise I’m a proud bogoak Irishman’. Dr Bill was great, he was always a winner.
“Sylvie Barrett was a winner too and the night he was selected to stand for the Dáil is one of my outstanding memories. There was never a night like it. It was in the Queen’s Hotel and it went on until the early hours.
“Kevin Boland chaired the meeting and Frank Aiken was there too. With 15 candidates it became known as the ‘Night of the Long Count’. Boland ordered the door locked until the count was over. It was like the conclave in Rome, but some of the delegates had contacts out in the bar and bottle of stout were being handed in. In the end it came down between Sylvie and Jack Daly. I knew Sylvie from his days collecting rates in Kildysart and he got the three votes from the Sean Lemass Cumann, from myself, Rory Lynch and Peter Ryan. There was never an election like it. It changed history.
“I had great time for Slyvie. I remember he was drafted in by either Charlie Haughey or Jack Lynch to try and sort out a row in north Kerry between rival Fianna Fáil factions the Tom McEllistrim faction and the Kit Ahern faction.
“We went down to Tralee. It was like a peace summit and we came away thinking that peace had broken out. We had a good drink for on the way home and were delighted with ourselves, only to hear a few days later that the peace didn’t last long and they were at war with each other again. Such in politics.”