Ireland’s mould breaking party was nearly torn apart by divisions in recent days. The PD National Executive was due to assemble next week - when the Galway Races would be in full swing.
But Noel Grealish (Galway West) and Ciaran Cannon (Galway East) had already booked tickets - and together they make up 50% of the party’s Oireachtas seat-holders.
The row erupted when the other half of the party – all Dublin, all female – announced their indifference to the Ballybrit event and demanded the AGM be held as scheduled.
'I thought it would look very bad if we were seen to be working around the Galway Races,' said former party leader Mary Harney. 'I know we’re genetically Fianna Fail, but rescheduling your AGM – even they wouldn’t do that.’
‘They wouldn’t do that because they’d never double book,’ retaliated current party leader Ciaran Cannon, brandishing his ticket.
Suddenly it was the male, west coast Cannon-Grealish coalition versus the all Dublin, all female other half of the party, PD heavyweights Harney and founder-offspring Fiona O Malley.
Keith Redmond, a 33-year old dentist and PD activist who (according to the PD website) ‘is set to wed his fiancée in next May’, contacted Paul Dunne, a local area representative for the PDs in Tramore, and the two mediated this epic east meets west gender war.
After gruelling talks that yielded material for futher disagreements, the AGM was held on Friday. Ciaran Cannon described the mood as ‘surprisingly buoyant for a party with an uncertain future.’
Fiona O Malley announced she will fight Dublin South’s byelection for a seat in the Dail. ‘I love being a senator,’ she said.
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