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Vote for Mr. Tayto if you like - but just vote...
(Irish Daily Mail)
In the dwindling days before any election, I always think of Emily Davison. Emily Davison set out for Epsom on June 4, 1913, and as the day's racing progressed, gradually worked her way through the crowd to the rails in time for the big race, the Derby.
The grainy, jumpy film footage that survives from that day shows that most of the horses had passed before Emily suddenly slipped under the rails and ran onto the course, directly into the path of Anmer, a horse owned by the king.
After her death in hospital some hours later, the return half of Emily's railway ticket was recovered from her handbag.
Her wild, reckless, desperate stunt at the racecourse had not been, as most commentators of the time assessed, a calculated suicide on the part of a deranged woman - Emily Davison believed she would be going home again after the races, having made a most emphatic point.
That point was simply that women should be allowed to vote.
It wasn't the most sensible way to pursue an argument and it's conceivable that Davison's actions actually set the cause of women's suffrage back a few years.
It wasn't until 1918 that women over 30 with certain property claims were given the vote, both in Ireland and in the UK, and it would be another ten years before all women over 21 could exercise their franchise.
In all, the campaign started by Emily Pankhurst and her redoubtable supporters lasted more than 20 years before it saw the results it demanded.
In the meantime, the campaign for votes for women cost many their reputation, their liberty and in the case of poor Emily Davison, her life.
So now, whenever I hear a young woman insist that politics is boring and voting a drag, I think of Emily Davison.
I wonder what she would have made of a generation of women weighed down by their rights and privileges, too bored to bother to vote.
I wonder what she would say to these young people who claim that all politicians are corrupt so there's no point in trying to change them.
I wonder what she'd say to the girls who toss their straightened hair and sigh that it's just not that interesting.
I wonder if, like me, she'd despair of their spoilt, blinkered vision of their world and want to shake them by their shrugged shoulders like I do.
Only 42 per cent of Irish people aged from 18 to 24 voted in the last election.
I wonder what Emily Davison would have made of that.
And I wonder if it's really worthwhile persuading people like Colin Farrell to encourage others to vote.
I wonder if Colin Farrell will vote.
Forget about rocking the vote or pimping the vote or what ever you're having yourself the vote.
All young people - particularly young women - need to know is that people have died so that they can vote.
And if you choose not to vote, then you also elect not to have an opinion on anything for the next five years.
So go and vote for Mr. Tayto, if you like - but for God's sake, vote.
Emily Davison won't be visiting her local polling station tomorrow. What's your excuse?
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