Adams and McNamara bow out after 50 years combined service

Adams and McNamara bow out after 50 years combined service


Mulranny
Edwin McGreal

While they may have three more months as councillors, outgoing county councillors Margaret Adams and MicheΡl McNamara both effectively bowed out of politics at the Fianna FΡil selection convention for West Mayo on Friday night.
By not putting their names forward the pair ended a combined total of 50 years as public representatives.
Cllr Adams has been a member of Westport Town Council for 40 years and Mayo County Council for 15 years while Cllr McNamara has been a member of Mayo County Council for ten years.
Margaret Adams told the convention in the Mulranny Park Hotel that it was ‘great’ to meet up with so many people on the night whom she had canvassed with for TDs like the late Denis Gallagher and the late Martin Joe O’Toole.
And she was grateful for all who helped her in her own political career.
“To those who canvassed, who drove cars, who made tea, who made headquarters out of their home and, most of all the people of Westport who elected me to the town council for 40 years and to Mayo County Council for 15 years,” she said.
MicheΡl McNamara praised Fianna FΡil members in Achill who ensured ‘local membership was sustained’ from the mid 80s to 2004’ despite having no councillor in Achill. He said it was the organisation who got him over the line and said he had ‘enjoyed every minute’ of his ten years.
Becoming emotional, he picked out his parents in the audience and thanked them for everything they had done.
SeΡn Staunton, the Chairman of the Mayo Fianna FΡil Dail Ceantair, said both Cllrs Adams and McNamara ‘can talk about the local organisations all they want’ but that the key factor was that ‘they were the calibre of people themselves that so many members of the public were happy to put their faith in’.
Deputy Dara Calleary praised both, saying Cllr Adams was a ‘straight talker’ and there was no one who was ‘as passionate about her town of Westport’ and she ‘can leave politics with an enormous and proud legacy’.
In a clear swipe at Minister of State Michael Ring, Deputy Calleary said that while ‘another Michael is inclined to take credit for the Greenway’, it was MicheΡl McNamara who had done more than anyone to bring it to fruition, adding that he was a huge loss to the party as a councillor.
SeΡn Staunton praised delegates for standing by the party through tough times, saying many ‘fair weather supporters’ had walked away when the going got tough.