Sinister looking men in dark suits, silver hair clinically parted at the side, have recently reappeared on the highways and byways of the nation. This can mean one of two things: either they're advertising a National Undertakers Convention, or politicians are once again on the loose, trawling the land for votes. The roads around Galway City and on throughout the countryside are clogged with unimaginative cheap-looking posters populated by glum looking, mostly male, individuals. It's not a pretty sight.

Travelling east, I calmed myself with the notion that the trees and electricity poles of Connemara would be safe from the indignity of having nails driven into them so they could play host to stern individuals glowering from a glossy black background. In my naivety I warmed to the notion that there would be nothing to distract me from the arduous task of driving around the collection of potholes we euphemistically label 'roads.'

Unfortunately in my absence the Poster People had moved on the landscape, and sporadic pockets of Euro-hopefuls now cling grimly to the trees. All was needed was a blast of wind from the west, and those roads we powerlessly tolerate were nicely strewn with paper and cardboard. A touch ironic, and something to batter Mr. Would-be-MEP around the head with the next time he appears at your door, telling you how he's going to personally fix the roads, resolve the planning permission fiasco, and, with a swish of his cape, sort out the thorny issues of the SACs.

It's all been said before, although at present there's more than usual being said as they beg for our votes in Europe and on the County Council. Connemara Community Radio is currently broadcasting a series of election programmes, and I tuned into the first of these, immediately sympathising with Mary, the very tenacious woman who hosted the programme. Amid infantile howls from our representatives-to-be she must have been suffocating in that small studio, filled as it was with enough hot air to keep Richard Branson floating above the globe well into the next century.

The politicians all basically said the same thing ('blah roads blah planning blah blah…') so why would you bother voting for one in preference to another? If they all do what they promise, the only people in trouble are the much maligned instigators of the SACs, the rest of us have years to look forward to here in Utopia, driving to and from new houses along pothole-free roads.

From listening to the Bunfight at Letterfrack the other night, there is only one conclusion to be drawn – and some of those involved in the 'discussion' intimated that this was the case – it's all down to the old tried, tested, and tedious game of Party Politics. One lucid comment actually emerged from the morass of bluster to emphasise the fact that, regardless of old party rivalries, Connemara had to come first.

The bombast will continue until June 11th, when their mission will have succeeded or failed. Afterwards, the peeling posters will flap dejectedly from their vantage points; all those pre-election Eco-friendly promises whipping around, forgotten in the wind and the rain. And the good people of Connemara will carry on as before, bouncing through the potholes.

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