*Barry O’Donovan. Photograph: John Mangan
EX GREEN PARTY member, Barry O’Donovan (RAB) is the last addition to the ballot paper in Clare for the November 29th General Election.
Clare’s record long ballot paper now stands at twenty candidates following the decision of O’Donovan to enter the fray.
He told The Clare Echo, “I wasn’t going to run as I have a lot on in my life right now but I’ve always felt that if there is no one you’re inspired to vote for, you should go forward yourself. There are a lot of things not working currently and there isn’t much sign that the current lot are going to fix them so I decided to give it a go myself”.
Barry contested the 2019 local elections for the Green Party where he polled 708 first preference votes in the Killaloe Municipal District in what was the Greens’ best performance in East Clare and their first time running a candidate since Mick Murtagh who was eliminated on the first count in 2004.
Subsequent to this bid, he admitted it was his intention to be on the ballot paper for the 2024 Clare County Council elections but in the intervening five years, he departed the Greens and is now part of Rabharta, a splinter group from the Greens which was founded in June 2021.
Since 2015, he has lived in Tuamgraney, he works as a network engineering manager.
When speaking on The Electoral Chair in advance of the local elections, Barry voiced his criticism of the Greens and even toyed with the prospect of a last-minute entry into the field for the Council election. “Before I left and when I was leaving, there was an awful lot to my mind of fairly toxic internal politics within the party”. He added, “I personally feel the Green left expresses my own perspective better” while admitting he was “very cynical” about the Programme for Government agreed by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens.
He also flagged that the “Green agenda” was used to blame everything by East Clare councillors but said, “I don’t think the Green Party has achieved very much of anything”.
Speaking in November 2018 when both O’Donovan and Senator Roisin Garvey (GP) were selected as Green Party candidates for the local elections in Clare, then party leader Eamon Ryan (GP) commented, “Barry O’Donovan has protested for fifty years, today he said to me we need to move on from protest and be productive”.
