First-time Sinn Féin councillor Ursula Gavan feels it is time that her party got back to its traditional socialist and republican values. After being chastised by the electorate in the recent local elections, which were a catastrophe for ‘The Shinners’, the party is now back to the drawing board to figure out their next move, writes Limerick Post political reporter Alan Jacques.
THE Irish nationalist party took only 12 per cent of the vote on June 7 after an expected landslide, an outcome that was felt by some to be a punishment for government mistakes even though it was not in power.
Taoiseach Simon Harris even went as far as deeming Sinn Féin’s performance in the locals as an “unmitigated disaster”.
Newly elected Sinn Féin councillor in Limerick City East, Ursula Gavan is cool out and witty with it. One of the lucky ones to get over the line on Shannonside in the locals, she now looks back on the elections as “the Eurovision of politics”.
“I do think the narrative that was coming out in the media was wholly against Sinn Féin,” Cllr Gavan told me when I caught up with her recently on the University of Limerick campus.
“We were ‘the government in waiting’ and the closer we got then, we got anxious and cautious in our message, and then we didn’t stand off enough to the Far Right and the immigration line. We were too vague,” she theorises.
“Ultimately, it was the referendum on family and care that killed us. I remember saying to my kids that it should be pulled. To me if a carer says no — because it was about carers — and what people felt, me included, you don’t mess with the Constitution.”
Once considered frontrunners to lead the next government, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald expressed disappointment in her party’s performance in the recent local elections, looking now to the future and a looming general election with a more humble worldview.
And while this bad day at the polls confirmed a slump in support, Cllr Gavan insists that lessons will be learned going forward to make up lost ground.
“We were too in step, and that’s not who we are. All this is coming from Mary Lou and the grassroots as well. She’s meeting with everybody and she is taking a report. You just even see the toll in the messages coming from her. I do think the government in waiting line damaged us,” Cllr Gavan admits.
“You listen to the focus groups, you listen to the advisors, and who listens to the advisors? You go with your gut and stay true to yourself, and we didn’t. I think you’ve got to put your hand up and say ‘mea culpa’.”
‘I didn’t come out overachieving’
Ursula is a working mother of three young adults, all living at home with her and her husband, Sinn Féin senator Paul Gavan, in Castleconnell.
Passionate about the Castleconnell-Castletroy area, she strongly believes the Council can build a safer more sustainable, dynamic, and inclusive community for all.
I asked Cllr Gavan about her aims for the next five years in the Council chamber.
“I didn’t come out overachieving. I think if I can get the basics done, then that’s what I can do,” she says.
“I strive to see if I can get the footpaths locally. We need greater connectivity from Castletroy and Annacotty into town. I mean, we’re 10 minutes out the road and we’re like a third world country in terms of services.
“We live right beside a railway track as well, which has huge potential, not just for the National Technological Park, but for the city too. We also need an increased Garda presence throughout the city. These are the issues,” the City East representative insists.
“From Montpelier in as far as the Groody footpaths are a big issue. Even from my own road in Castleconnell, from the campsite down into the village. There’s been a councillor there for 20 years and there’s no footpath, and it’s really dangerous because the O’Brien’s Bridge Road is closed with the new bridge being done and all the trucks are coming this way.
“Footpaths, cycling tracks, even the connectivity from Lisnagry School into Castleconnell village, guards, housing, public amenities, these are the things I want to deliver on.”
Political foreplay
Sinn Féin have now pledged to deliver 50,000 affordable homes over five years if voted into power. They also plan to deliver an additional 75,000 social housing properties through state funding with local authorities, approved housing bodies, and community housing trusts.
Cllr Gavan tells me it is the reality of her children and their generation’s struggle to be able to afford to rent, let alone get a mortgage, that spurred her into politics.
“Do you remember 10 years ago you could get a house or an apartment somewhere? You can’t even do that now,” she hits out.
Married to Senator Paul Gavan for over 20 years, Ursula is no stranger to elections, canvassing, and the big bad political world. I am curious to know if they ever talk about anything other than affairs of state around the dinner table?
“It’s great foreplay,” she suggests with a wry grin.
“We do talk about politics. The kids would be very knowledgeable, but it wouldn’t be their greatest cup of tea either — sometimes they want to get away from it.
“My eldest and youngest really helped out with the election campaign. Joe, my eldest son, he’s 21 in August, has been through a recession, banking crisis, and now housing crisis. His whole life has been crisis after crisis after crisis.”
‘The world is gone bonkers’
A strong supporter of the Palestinian people, Ursula can often be seen wearing her keffiyeh scarf as an act of solidarity.
When I met with her on a sunny day out in UL’s Castletroy campus, where she works, the death toll in Gaza nears 40,000 as tens of thousands flee the onslaught in and around the second city of Khan Younis by foot and by car.
“During Covid, I painted the Palestinian flag in the back garden. I’ve always supported Palestine. I don’t know why Israel aren’t being called out on it more as an apartheid state, which it is,” she asserts.
“The world is gone bonkers. Over 17,000 children have been killed and more are under the rubble. It’s just wrong. You’d lose your faith wouldn’t you?”
The Sinn Féin councillor quips that she keeps threatening to send husband “Gav” over to the Middle East “because he’s a great mediator”.
“He’s been there before and they probably won’t let him back because he’s so outspoken and critical,” she says.
“But the thing is there’s no global world leaders standing tall anymore. Back in the day you had the elders, Mary Robinson, Bishop Tutu, but there’s nobody like that anymore. Macron isn’t there. Scholz in Germany is an absolute disgrace, and you can’t even go Stateside because you’d lose your mind with what’s going on over there.”
Putting the world to rights is something I imagine is well within Cllr Gavan’s capabilities. For now though, she is putting her energy into Council duties with gusto.
