*Paddy Murphy outside The Nineteenth Bar. Photograph: John Mangan
DRIVING a national agenda has arrived at the expense of basic services in Clare according to General Election hopeful Paddy Murphy (IND).
Tulla native Paddy has lived in Lahinch since 1997 where he is the general manager of the 19th Bar and owns a coffee shop Anna & Co.
When election posters initially appeared in Lahinch, it was presumed to be a hoax but Paddy is serious about running for office. “I’m standing in the election because I believe that the, political establishment in this country are promoting and implementing a national agenda at the expense of basic services in this county, and it has also had a dramatic effect on, the livelihoods and the quality of life of the people of Clare. I’m talking about health, immigration, tourism, law and order, housing, and public transport”.
Notions of running were first teased on TikTok where he has over 1,500 followers. “People seem to know me as the TikTok man. How big is the following? I don’t know, but I’m getting the impression that I’m very well known”. He added, “I put a humorous element into it, but I get my message out, if you understand what I mean. Don’t be under any illusions. I’m a serious operator. I run a very good establishment here, well known in the county, consistent, well run, no rubbish”.
Clare is the seventh biggest county in Ireland but services are being put further away from the most vulnerable, he flagged.
Immigration’s impact has been experienced in coastal Clare, he outlined. “We give away over 30% of our bedrooms. We give away Lisdoonvarna which was the biggest hub for the whole of the county. There were tour buses that were staying up there for the week and going all over Clare and had plenty of time to designate to particular areas, now we’ve seen an explosion in day tour coach buses from Dublin, a procession coming down subsidised by Care County Council because they have to be there by a certain time, early in the morning, in and out, gone, you can’t see Clare in an hour or two. Let’s look at the broader picture, outside of the fact that we’ve lost Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival for a month, there was the Trad Fest in Ennis where people were couch surfing for accommodation. A scary thing about these hotels, what worries me that a lot of them might not end up going back into hotels because of the cost of refitting, I’m a hotel manager, that’s what I’m trained in and nobody’s even thought about this, to go back into recruitment”.
“I couldn’t tell you the last time I heard someone mentioned the Wild Atlantic Way, you go into Temple Bar tonight, and it is strong, there’s music on there from 11 in the morning, that’s the reality of the situation, you go up to the Cliffs at any time, and it’s like an anthill. Do you think that’s coming down here? You know, I’m calling for park and rides to be put into in a Ennistymon, Lahinch, Liscannor, Doolin, Lisdoonvarna, that the communities can benefit from the Cliffs and not the Council. It’s not the Council’s place to be competing with local business. They should be helping us and promoting us instead of increasing our rates and all other costs associated with it, but they shouldn’t be in competition with us”.
Expanding on his stance on immigration, Paddy said, “I think it’s absolutely disgraceful, first of all, that anyone that doesn’t go with the political line that was coming out and rhetoric out of Dublin is being branded as, either a racist or far right, that’s my first line. People are standing up for their communities, and they have legitimate concerns. That’s very important. But the national media, the mainstream above, we’re branding people that they didn’t even know who they were in this county, we heard it. calling them far right and stuff like that”.
A graduate of the Shannon College of Hotel Management, after a stint travelling Paddy returned to Lahinch where he ran The Spinnaker until the economic crash in 2009. “When the crash came in 2009, I was one of those people that was wiped out and had because of Fianna Fáil and Green government so I had to immigrate back to England again to earn a few bob because there was nothing for me but I came back, reinvented myself, and here we are, sitting down talking about, another government”.
Prior to the local elections, Paddy presented a petition from local businesses to one North Clare representative who placed the document in his pocket and never engaged with Murphy on the matter since. “I am one of the silent minority that is sick of this political rhetoric, waffle. I’m the one that’s here with direct debits going out, seeing cost go out of control, seeing business eroded and I can only take so much of it, and I can’t listen to lines anymore about integration and, the thing about the cattle was the one that got me the most that they want to cull it there’s a was a reference to culling half our herd because of emissions and the line that was being, said was that we’re working with the farmers and we’re getting a very positive reaction, which is a lot of political jargon, you know, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. I joked here in the bar that they’ll be after the pubs next for emissions on the Saturday night”.
For the June elections, he was very much in the camp of Cllr Bill Slattery (FG) and promoted him which precluded a potential bid for the Council. “I felt Bill was very badly treated in the previous election. I listened to people giving out about it and all that kind of thing, but I’m a man of action, I did what it took to help him as much as I could. I have a big following online, and I didn’t hold back and I don’t apologise for it, Bill did more work for the community when he lost his seat, he proved what kind of a man he is, a community man and in that election, a local election, you vote for the man, you don’t go with the party”.
He clarified that while he supported Bill, he was not backing Fine Gael. “I endorsed the man in a local election. The man for the work he was doing in the community. There’s a big difference between a local election. A very good question, by the way, but I repeat, I endorse the man, not the party. When he lost his seat, he never stopped working for the community, and a local election is about the community”.
Slattery’s allegiance to Fine Gael has seen him canvass for Cllr Joe Cooney (FG) rather than Murphy. “Bill is very straight with me. Bill is a party man now. Bill is a very good customer of the 19th, and we are great friends. You know how politics works. I have no issue with this. I am a one man show with ten posters that I move around and my social media. As regards knocking on doors and that, I’d sooner the TV licence inspector call to my house than a politician to give me a load of spin”.
Of particular concern to Paddy is the lack of a Garda presence in North and West Clare. “When I say there’s two cars in in from Loop Head to, Kinvara on a particular night, and one of those cars can be brought into in Ennis at any time, I have my facts right. When I say that there’s community policing, which was so prevalent during the COVID which was amazing, by the way, going up to all our elderly and vulnerable and we were so appreciative to work with Deirdre Scanlon inside in Ennistymon”.
He continued, “37% of the population lives in West Clare of this county, very rural and yet we have seem to have thrown them under the bus and there is a big fear factor there. Our guards are not preventing crime. They’re trying to extinguish situations when they get to it. They don’t have the presence because they don’t have the resources on the ground, and this is a management issue. They took away three superintendents from us, no superintendent in Kilrush or Ennistymon would stand over the service at the minute. No way would he have his reputation tarnished like that. But what do we do? We amalgamate our division into Tipperary, it doesn’t make an ounce of sense. I grew up in in Tulla where we had the skipper and two guards. The skipper was in the square and Tulla every day with his pipe. But you know what he was doing? He was watching everything. We had John Fawl here in Lahinch. He would be parked on the main street. You wouldn’t even know he was there. The kids come out at the nightclub or whatever. You wouldn’t know he was there, but as soon as something happened, he was there, he would show up, but, by god, he know how to, function, you know”.
Rural residents have been left in isolated communities, he told The Clare Echo. “They need reassurance to feel safe, we have a lot of elderly people here, even our farmers, the average age of a farmer in Clare at the minute is 57 years of age, we’re not a young county so that that’s a basic right. Visibility is a deterrent”.
Access to health services has also left the people of rural Clare neglected, he warned. “Explain to someone from Carrigaholt that’s going in for an outpatient treatment at the minute, cancer or whatever, they have to do a two hour journey into Limerick because we’ve nothing in this county, two hours back out again. They’re depending on a local charity like Slainte an Chláir or the West Clare Cancer Service or their neighbours or whatever to get them in and out. Nobody in the in the East Coast could envisage a two hour journey to a to a basic hospital service”. He added, “our elderly would soon have go out to Kilmacreehy graveyard or whatever than go back there. Inside in Ennis, they can identify with the area they are from, they can identify with their neighbours and talk to them”.
Paddy Murphy
Occupation – Publican and coffee shop owner
General manager of the 19th, owner of the coffee shop.
DOB – 05/05/68
Party – Independent
Top priority – Immigration and its effects on the tourism industry
