any ideology, while supporters portray them as standing up to the metropolitan elites in Dublin. Jackie (throughout his Dáil career) and Michael (in the 31st Dáil) chose not to join the technical group to which independent TDs are entitled. The Healy-Raes' main rivals for votes in Kerry are Fianna Fáil candidates. Outside the Dáil chamber, Jackie was always seen wearing a trademark flat cap in public; though Danny appears bare-headed, Michael has carried on the tradition, and in February 2017 was permitted to wear it in the Dáil chamber. Michael was nicknamed "Dolly", after the cloned sheep, for being similar to his father; journalist Shane Hegarty enumerated "[t]he flat cap, the mannerisms, the political ambition, the linguistic trickery, the neck". A Fine Gael election strategy document leaked in 2015 described Michael as 'someone who hides behind "the veneer of a friendly/simple country yokel" but who is "unbeatable electorally"'. After the 2016 election, Michael and Danny aligned themselves with other rural independents during separate negotiations with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Michael publicly proposed creation of a Minister for Rural Affairs, while playing down media suggestions he himself might take the position. When the 32nd Dáil changed Dáil standing orders to allow multiple technical groups, Michael and Danny joined the Rural Alliance technical group. In 2008, the Irish Times likened the Healy Raes to the mafia, calling the family “the well honed Healy Rae political mafia,” with former Ceann Comhairle and Kerry TD John O’Donoghue claiming that there was "a tinge of the Cosa Nostra'' in one of Jackie Healy-Rae's requests in relation to election boundaries. In a 2011 edition of Irish Political Studies, an example of assistance from one of the family members was cited by one voter as a reason for supporting them; "I need a track machine to clear a drain and Johnny had it down to me with a driver in two days, all free." Ahead of the 2020 general election, British newspaper The Guardian commented that "the family has elevated patronage and personal connection – venerable traditions in Irish politics – to high art." On the electoral success of Jackie, it wrote that he "distilled the Kerry-man archetype – flat cap, melodic accent, folksy phraseology – into a potent formula." See also Families in the Oireachtas References Further reading External links Interview with Jackie Healy-Rae Oral History Collection, Mary Immaculate College of Education, Limerick Political families