Seamus to call it a day on county council
A TIPPERARY councillor who has announced his retirement after two decades as a public representative says he gave up using social media because of negative experiences on various online platforms.
Cllr Seamus Hanafin, from Thurles, will step down as a Fianna Fáil member of Tipperary County Council in May next year after serving 21 years as a county councillor, first with North Tipperary County Council from 2003 to 2014 and since then with Tipperary County Council, which was formed following the amalgamation of the former with South Tipperary County Council nine years ago.
“Certainly, there’s a whole lot I will miss about it; but I do think the time is right to call it a day and time to move on and do different things and refocus on my life and business,” Cllr Hanafin told The Guardian.
Asked if he found the job as a public representative nowadays more demanding compared to when he was first co-opted to North Tipperary County Council in 2003, he said: “It’s difficult being a public representative now. There’s a whole lot of stuff on social media that is going on.”
He revealed that because of such “stuff”, he had not engaged with social media for a number of years. “If you want to know who is shouting the loudest you go to social media, and if you want to know what is happening in your community you go to the local newspaper,” he declared.
He added: “Social media has become very loud and the fact of the matter is that I no longer engage with it for years now, because what I found out was that what I was seeing or listening to on social media wasn’t representative of what people were saying to me face-to-face.
“There’s a lot of negativity on social media, but in fact it does not represent the vast majority of people: I would always say the silent majority are exactly that – they’re silent, and they’re the majority.”
THE PANDEMIC
Cllr Hanafin (60), a married man with three grown-up children, all in their 20s, said, that like many other people, he began to look at what was really important to his life during the Covid lockdowns. “I have enjoyed most of the time being a public representative, but you come to a time to finish and in my case that’s just before the next local elections next year. You come to the years in life where you want to do other things, and those years are becoming shorter.”
Overall, he has found his two decades in public life to be “a very positive experience” and felt he and his fellow councillors who served over that period achieved some very good things for Tipperary.
There was a mix of positive and negative developments over the years, he said. “I think the loss of the town councils was a retrograde step, but the amalgamation of the North and South County Council made for a stronger county.
“But the amalgamation of the two council also made the job of the public representative more difficult; that actually you were more disconnected; like there was a time I would be in Nenagh every Monday, whereas now I’m not in Nenagh four times a year.
“But I do think that merging the two councils was good for the county – when you see the Urban Regeneration Development funding Tipperary received in recent years: It amounted to 30 per cent of the whole national pot.”
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Cllr Hanafin comes from a family that has given distinguished service to local government since the 1920s. He grandfather Johnny Hanafin was a member of Longford Urban District Council in the 1920s and later served with North Tipperary County Council from 1950. After he died in office in 1954 his son Des Hanafin, a former Fianna Fáil senator, became a council member. An aunt, Binki Hanafin, was elected to the north council in 1979 and served for many years. Seamus is a first cousin of Mary Hanafin, the former Fianna Fáil senior minister who served in a number of Government departments, including Tourism and Education and of former party senator, John Hanafin.
Asked about the highlight of his political career, Cllr Hanafin replied: “Being elected Cathaoirleach of Tipperary County Council in 2015 was a huge privilege. I had a ball of a year and saw so much, and it was terrific.”
He added: “Over my 20 years I have met some fantastic people and I will miss interacting with people in the council. I am genuinely grateful to the people who voted for me and supported me.”
As well as spending time enjoying some more free time with his family, Cllr Hanafin, who was returned in all four local elections he contested, said he will continue to put more focus on his furniture retail business in Thurles.