It's now or never for Mayo Fianna Fáil's Lisa Chambers

Two ministers for Castlebar - "It would be a form of collective insanity if we couldn't bring them home"

by Dr. Richard Martin

Every year without fail we get a visitor for the summer.

The cuckoo.

The bird's song period is from late April to late June.

Mick O’Dwyer always used it as a measuring stick.

When the cuckoo sung it was time to get down to business. Championship was just around the corner.

The infamous cruel training would begin in Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney.

O’Dwyer knew his lads only had to peak twice a year. Cork in the Munster final. Dublin in the All-Ireland.

It was his job to time the run. He never got it wrong. He always had his charges in peak condition for the day of days.

Despite their success, eight All-Irelands in eleven years, it still wasn't enough to keep everyone happy in the Kingdom.

No-one had to tell O’Dwyer that the pat on the back was only six inches from the kick up the backside. He nearly lost his job as manager in the Autumn of ‘77. Kerry had lost to Dublin two years on the trot.

There was a sizeable amount of ex-players who wanted him out. He held on by the skin of his teeth.

The hurling clubs in north Kerry voted for him at convention and saved his job. Kerry won the next four All-Irelands. It's funny how the grain of rice can tip the scale. If the hurling clubs hadn't voted for Dwyer would Kerry have won all those All-Irelands?

Frank Chambers’ transfers in 2002 saved Enda Kenny's career. Kenny came within 87 votes of being eliminated. He would never have been Taoiseach only for those few votes.

The course of history was changed.

Even though the field is highly competitive and loaded with potential cabinet ministers, there is one enigmatic candidate.

From any objective viewpoint she is a stellar candidate. Young, highly intelligent, well educated, a barrister by profession and possesses a national profile.

Her name is Lisa Chambers.

Intellectually she is on a different plain to all her competitors. If elected she will be handed a senior cabinet portfolio straight away.

In a coalition government with FG, the town of Castlebar could have two cabinet ministers representing them in the national chamber. That's serious clout.

Currently, there are only five female TDs representing FF in the Oireachtas.

Once Micheál Martin retires from political life she could potentially challenge for the leadership of FF and be a Taoiseach.

Jack Chambers is a nudge ahead but only a nudge. It's a no-brainer for the town vote for her and give her the mandate to govern so why isn't she a virtual shoo in?

Something is amiss. Is it local petty jealousy?

Micko would regularly remind his troops: "There's 31 and a half counties against us lads."

For all their unprecedented success there were still amongst their own in Kerry who begrudged their never ending success and wanted them to fail.

Is there some of that in Castlebar and Mayo with Lisa Chambers?

Her talent and potential is obvious so why isn't there the traction behind her to get into the Dail?

The local organisation is splintered. Blackie’s departure hasn't helped. Blackie works for Blackie.

The unity that is so clearly evident in the Dillon camp doesn't appear to be present in Castlebar FF.

It's unfortunate but she has inherited old splits and wounds from the thrilling days when the House of Flynn was in the ascendancy.

I wanted to find out more. So I did.

I met Senator Chambers this week in her office. I remember Lisa and her sister Michelle as kids in Lakeshore Drive. My grandmother lived there and I spent a lot of time there as a kid.

There was a pack of us running around the estate in the ‘90s. It was very innocent. Tip-the-can. Soccer. Building huts. Rounders. I'm not sure if kids can do that today.

That innocence was lost when the Celtic Tiger came. Ireland changed. Suddenly, adults had money. Teenagers had money. Suddenly, everyone had a playstation or a Nintendo 64. When kids used to be outside playing football, they were now inside staring at a TV with glazed eyes clicking a plastic control like a Pavlovian dog over and over and over.

Overnight, the innocent games of Cops and Robbers morphed into underage drinking. If you didn't drink you had no adolescence. If you did drink you had no adolescence. Drink stifles growth. The Mitchels saved me.

The major societal problems that face us in Ireland today all took root in the late ‘90s. The issues of homelessness and drug abuse/addiction are enmeshed and intertwined.

You can't have one without the other. Cocaine has become increasingly readily available on the towns and streets across Ireland since the year 2000.

A drug addict is dead spiritually. Physically present but dead inside.

I just wonder sometimes where is the soul of Ireland today? The rise of the far-right and the increasing surge of racism and ignorance is not the sign of a nation at peace with itself.

A nation that is addicted to drink and drugs is not a nation with soul. Far from it. I'm not sure what the solution is but I know it isn't chemical.

Anyways, I lost track of the Chambers sisters. They left Lakeshore Drive for Ballyheane.

I did my Leaving Cert in 2005. Lisa did hers in 2004. She went to Galway to study commerce. I went to study medicine.

Our paths didn't cross. I had a singular focus on the GPO on a Monday night, Cuba on a Tuesday night, Boo Radley's on a Wednesday night and CP's on a Thursday night.

After Lisa completed her degree in commerce, she did a two year postgrad LLB. All the while she worked every weekend in the TF in Castlebar. Impressive.

She explained that she would never have been able to do all this if it wasn't for the higher education grant, in other words financial assistance from the state.

I told her she is the product of FF policy. She laughed and said: "Richard, without the introduction of free education I would never have been able to achieve what I achieved. Free education removed the barriers that were in front of me and people like me."

I told her Donogh O'Malley was a friend of my grandfather and a very close friend of my granduncle Tom Kelly. Donogh and Tom were both engineering students in Galway in the ‘40s. It's something I'm proud of. It means something.

Every time I walk by the engineering building I get the reminder. Tom Kelly spent his working life in Pennsylvania. Education was important to him too. You have to pay for it over there. His home was a library. He never stopped reading and learning.

After she completed her LLB she went to UCD and got a masters in Commercial Law. She worked and paid for this herself. Why law?

"Because, I loved debating and persuading," she explained.

Why politics, I asked. You were passionate about becoming a lawyer from a young age, when did your interest in politics start?

Lisa replied: "In 2009. I was invited to a local cumann meeting by a friend. Later, Beverly decided not to run in the 2011 general election and I was asked to represent FF in her stead.

"From my point of view the election was a success. I got 4,000 votes, we only expected 2,000 given the climate of the times."

FF was obliterated in the 2011 GE. It has risen again from the ashes. The only way they could go after was up.

They were at rock bottom. After that election I really got a taste for politics and I decided to stay in Ireland instead of emigrating to Australia with my friends.

Our conversation, moved hopped and skipped over her life, career and politics. We touched on SF policy and their recent implosion.

I suggested that the SF housing policy is junk and laughable. She was more politic and deliberate in her response, but essentially agreed that their housing policy makes absolutely no sense when you consider that the owner of a house won't own the land on which the house sits.

It will only lead to a myriad of legal complications down the line.

Bottom line, she said, in this country we want to own our own house. Lock, stock, the lot.

Castlebar is the home of Micheal Davitt and the Land League. The whole purpose of Irish emancipation was to own our own homes and land.

That's why our forefathers fought and died against British colonialism. We didn't fight to own half a house.

She told me that over the past few years she has being working with Prof. Kerins in UCHG on improving cancer survival rates in the west/northwest and address the regional imbalance between survival outcomes between the east and west coast.

Sitting with her I found her to be human and good fun. Weak populist politics is for others.

Senator Chambers wants to be at cabinet to deliver for the town and county. She is proud of the climbing wall to Lough Lannagh which she helped deliver to the town. It has been a pet project of hers for the last few years.

In 2020 Lisa lost her Dáil seat, which was a huge shock given her national profile and likely ascension to the throne of FF. Why? I asked.

"No-one saw the SF surge coming, Richard. Wanting to commemorate the RIC was political suicide. 5,000 votes left the town. 3,000 went 60 miles up the road to Belmullet and 2,000 votes went over to Ring in Westport," she said.

When I hear that it angers me. It's not right. We have two potential cabinet ministers on the same street. It would be a form of collective insanity if we couldn't bring them home.

We finished our chat after an hour or so. I closed by saying 'this is it, isn't it?'

She agreed.

"It's now or never Richard. Whatever happens when it's done it's done. I need to be able to say to myself I left everything on the pitch and couldn't have done anymore. It's going to go to the proverbial wire," admitted Lisa.

I left her office impressed. It's hard not to admire a fighter. She'd be a certain starter for Mick O'Dwyer.

When P. Flynn was elected to Mayo County Council in 1967, his mother uttered the immortal phrase: "You christen your own child first Padraig."

And by God he did. But, that works both ways. If we want power in the town, real power, we have to christen our own children first.

We have two potential cabinet ministers in the town centre.

Let's stop the negativity and back them.