Candidates in business as posters go up – but Holly's go missing!

A POSTER for a West Cork local elections candidate was taken off a pole near Durrus and nailed – upside down – to a tree outside a nearby graveyard and church, within hours of it being erected.

Social Democrat candidate and farmer Holly McKeever Cairns, a first-time candidate in the Bantry area, said she was horrified to find the poster drilled into the tree on Wednesday morning.

It was one of four posters, erected by Holly’s team, which went missing in the Durrus area, on Wednesday – the first official day of postering.

‘I can’t believe that someone would do this,’ said Holly. ‘Especially to a new candidate. Posters are so important when you are the underdog, or a new face. I just can’t believe anybody would be so mean.’

Holly says she is not hugely in favour of postering, but feels it is a necessary evil when a candidate is new to the ballot paper.

‘I got a call from a woman who found the poster nailed to that beautiful tree outside the graveyard. And it was put there upside down. It’s just awful,’ she told The Southern Star, during her canvass of the Mizen area on Wednesday afternoon.

And she appealed for anyone who might come across any of the three missing posters to contact her via her Facebook page, which also contains phone contact details. ‘I would really like to get them back so I could recycle them and use them somewhere else,’ she said. 

Meanwhile, gardaí in Blarney are investigating the theft of a trailer full of posters belonging to Independent  Cllr Kevin Conway, who is contesting a seat in the Cork City North West area. He is currently in hospital, and the trailer had been parked near his home in Blarney.