The year of the outsider?

Damian McCarney

Nigel Renaghan is an outsider. Monaghan man, poultry chairman - they’re not the boxes you would ordinarily tick if predicting a winner in an IFA election. But then this is no ordinary year - the fact there’s an election at all is testimony to that. All’s changed and so too is the old ways of predicting poll winners.
Considering the job that some of the IFA insiders did whilst the top dogs’ salaries spiralled into the realms of heads of state, Nigel may do well to embrace his outsider status. Noting the anger within the membership he concluded he could make a contribution, and it would be received well enough to see him elected.
“I seen the anger that was out there and realised that unless people like me stand up, nothing’s going to change. I have a history of delivery, and I said these things would serve me well.
“I achieved a lot in my term as national poultry chairman and I said to myself, ‘Considering what has happened and the turmoil that is in within the organisation, maybe it is time that someone like myself would have an opportunity to put myself forward’ - and that’s what I did.
“Ordinarily I wouldn’t have this opportunity because I’m from Monaghan. There has never been a deputy president from Monaghan or from Cavan. That’s just a fact, so if I was ever going to do it, and if Cavan or Monaghan was ever going to do it, now is our time to do it.”
He was determined to not be haunted by regrets.
“I said look I’m not going to have a situation in 10 years time saying, ‘I should have done this’ or ‘I wish I had have done that’.”
So topsy turvy were those initial weeks of turmoil last November he even considered running as president but when he “weighed everything up” he concluded he could “make a good stab” at running for deputy president.
What Nigel gains in clean hands he loses in both geography and profile. For example as chairman of Kildare IFA, his rival Pat Farrell will count on the support of his Lilywhite brethren, and will hope for good votes from amongst his neighbours in counties Meath, Offaly, Laois, and Westmeath. By contrast, when Nigel looks to his hinterland he sees the voiceless farmers of Fermanagh, Tyrone and Armagh. Only Cavan and Louth can possibly bolster his Farney votes out of sheer neighbourliness. That stat he mentioned on no-one from either Monaghan or Cavan has ever held such a senior IFA role is no coincidence.
His neighbours in Cavan were amongst the county executives to nominate Nigel to run, but while county chairman James Speares wished Nigel well in the contest, he predicted voter recognition will be his greatest problem. While Nigel held the national poultry chairmanship, the post doesn’t carry the same weight as say national beef or dairy chairman which his other rival for the deputy’s position, Richard Kennedy has on his CV. That’s probably what the bookies had in mind when they made the Limerick man 4/5 favourite; you can back Nigel at 3/1.
His portfolio at national level may appear his Achilles heal, but he bristles at suggestions his background is limited to poultry.
“Some people would try to pigeonhole you, to put you down by saying that - ‘Aw sure you’re only poultry’.
“But I’m a beef farmer as well - I keep sucklers and I keep beef, but some people are pigeonholing me into poultry, but remember this: I got into poultry because I couldn’t make enough from my beef or cattle enterprise to support my family. So is somebody going to say to me I am less of a farmer because of that? I don’t think that’s fair.”
In fairness to Nigel, at the time he’s answered the Celt’s phonecall, there’s still countless interviews, debates, and meet and greets to go before the ballot boxes finally close on April 8. Having enjoyed his first taste of the debate series in Roscrea, he dismisses suggestions that voter recognition will pose a major stumbling block.
“Let me tell you one thing for nothing - everybody knows my name after that,” he says confidently. He sounds quite emotional having fielded a phonecall the morning of the Celt’s interview from an elderly who, he claims was impressed by his message in Tipperary. She regretted that none of her well-educated sons could see a future in agriculture.
“She said she could feel me. This was a woman of 70 years of age who said, ‘I could feel you when you were up there because I knew you were the right man for the job...’
“She said, do you know what? I believe in you.”
How did you feel when she said that?
“It left me in floods of tears,” he replies.
It is Nigel’s hope in youth, and the future of farming, that his campaign hinges on. He hopes that his relative youth, and his struggles to make a livelihood in the profession he loves will resonate.
The Celt asks Nigel for his number one priority if he wins, and with a Jim McGuinness level of intensity, he ‘corrects’ the Celt - “When I am deputy president, when I am deputy president”.
He proceeds: “The age profile we have within the organisation is not good. At county executive meetings, the age profile is quite old. We have a lack of young farmers joining the organisation. I know how to get the young farmers back in. I have a plan to get the young farmers back in, and I believe as I’m 45 years of age, and a father of six kids, the oldest being twelve and the youngest being twelve months, I am ideally positioned to get the young farmer back in because I believe they can relate to me. I’m making payments, I’m trying to build a family home on the farm - I think there are a lot of young farmers who will be able to relate to that. And if they can relate to that they can relate to the IFA, and they can join the IFA.
“I’m going to revitalise the organisation. I know how I’m going to do it. There’s no point in saying that you’re going to do this and then you can’t explain how you are going to do it.”
He aims to tempt young farmers to become more involved in the IFA through the discussion groups, and through the Young Leaders scheme - and reward them with representation at national level.
“I will get a regional [young farmer] representative from each area to go to national council, so they feel represented and we can have four young farmers up at national council so they can feel they have a voice and they can push the agenda. Because there’s no one who is going to push it as hard as the young farmer - who is trying to build his house and is trying to support his family - he is the man who is going to push harder than anybody else.”
He observes that all farmers want from their reps is “delivery” in securing “their fair share and their income”. He’s forceful in claiming he’s got a record of delivery. It was the same platform which saw him win what he describes as “a brutal election” for the national poultry chair.
“A leader doesn’t tell you how it’s done,” he says. “He shows you the way, and I have demonstrated that.”
He takes credit for his role in securing TAMS funding for poultry farmers “for the first time ever in the history of IFA”.
He claims that for “about 14 months” he lobbied Minister Simon Coveney in a pestering fashion, with the sole aim of “getting funding, getting funding, getting funding”.
“I asked for €25 million the first day I met him. He near fell off the chair.”
Nigel and a number of Cork farmers followed this up with regular meetings in the minister’s Carrigaline office.
“About every six or seven weeks I was in the office. What is it now? Money, money, money, money, money. €25 million. I kept at it, kept at it, kept at it. It got to a point there that whenever I rang up: ‘Nigel?’.
“I said, ‘That’s right’.”
“€17.3 million - that’s what we got - that’s between pigs and poultry.
“Squeaking doors get oiled - we just kept at it, and at it, and at it, and at it. That’s what we got.”