Edition Bobbett2. Speeches and statements by Elizabeth F. Bobbett
1953 Aughrim, By-election Meeting
Source: Wicklow People, 04.07.1953
Miss Bobbett said that when she decided to contest the election, people were crying out that they wanted an independent, and she felt that if they contested this election, it would give the people a chance of voting for an independent. She knew that her chances of success were not very hopeful, this being a bye-election. As time went on, and as she saw the enormous amount of money being spent by the big political parties, who brought dozens of Deputies every week into the county, and as she heard the shocking lies told to the people outside chapel gates, she realised that they were all out to try and blacken the chances of an independent. She felt that by going forward, she would be giving those farmers who had always supported the independent candidate an opportunity to show whether they were sincere or not. “The farmers have proved that they don’t want me,” Miss Bobbett said, “and, therefore, I am not a bit disappointed. They have got a farmer into the Fine Gael seat who is twice my weight, if not more, and I hope he pulls his weight twice as well as I pulled it in the last seventeen years. I hope it will open the eyes of the Fine Gael Party to the work we have done. I am disappointed that the farmers have been such fools as to go back into the laps of the politicians again. I am sorry that the farmers seem glad to throw the difficulties of political life on to the shoulders of everybody else. I am sorry for you people who were such willing workers during the election. I think, on the whole, considering the funds we had available, and the willing workers who remained staunch to our ideals, that we put up a good show, and while, personally, I have lost some friends, I have made many more sincere ones. I would like publicly, to pay a tribute to my friends from Bray and Greystones. I was called the third Fianna Fail candidate, and a lot of nasty things were said because I was supporting Deputy Cogan, but when by votes were distributed, it showed that I was absolutely independent. Mr. Deering, who got 950 of these votes, said: ‘Thank you for the very great help you have given me.’ I said: ‘It is up to you to contradict the lying things that were said at meetings.’ He replied: ‘I will try and be charitable.’ I hope the farmers will see that Mr. Deering pulls his full weight. Mr. Cogan has down a motion that there be no reduction in the agricultural grant, and if the Inter-Party want a general election, let them one and all support that motion and throw out the Government. But it remains to be seen whether they are in earnest.
On the night before polling, she called to a farmer’s house, and one of the things said to her was “If you do get elected, stop this terrible language that is being used in the Dail.” She must say that she had never heard a nasty word used on Wicklow County Council, but the language used in the Dail was an absolute disgrace to a Christian country. “I feel like writing to Mr. Deering and asking him if he will raise the matter,” she said.