Online now: my short radio documentary on this year’s local elections, for The Curious Ear on Radio One. The blurb:

In May 2009, Colin Murphy hit the roads of Ireland on the campaign trail with some of the 40 immigrants who ran in the local elections. In Dublin, Limerick, Monaghan and Donegal, he talked to candidates and the people they were canvassing about the issues and the practicalities of local politics in Ireland. From Patrick Maphoso’s activist independent politics on Dublin’s northside to Anna Rooney’s staunch support for the Government in Clones, this project charts the diversity of experience and opinion amongst an emerging group of politicians. Ultimately, the experience was a sobering one for many of those. “It will take a long time for people to get used to immigrants participating in the elections,” said Maphoso, “but the first generation have to pave the way.” In Letterkenny, Michael Abiola Phillips is also philosophical: “I won’t be disappointed even if I don’t get in this time around,” he said. “It means I have to work harder.”

For more, see FOMACS.