Irish politics discussion thread

did some skimming about haughey and the ira

apparently he was given money to provide assistance for nationalist families in the north, tried to buy guns from some ex-nazi

probably not one of his bigger sins

bit of a stink of military dictator in waiting about it, i've always thought.

did ireland have enough military to stage a coup?

There was no rapprochement in the relationship between Gibbons and Haughey and when Haughey became Taoiseach, Gibbons was dropped from his Ministerial office. During a later leadership contest, Gibbons was assaulted in Dáil Éireann by Haughey supporters

nice little detail. believe future economic doyen c mccreevey was also bet out of the dáil after a failed heave in the 80's.

haughey's a real bogeyman, interesting character. he got serious hooks into the national psyche thogh, we've certainly not had anyone able to whip the country into a frenzy like him since.

my dad claims as follows, btw

- haughey used to stay in his family's b&b along with other FF honchos back in the day
- he dated haughey's daughter when he was a dashing young fisherman, or at least istr him mentioning in passing once

i'm not sure it would have taken a serious military presence as a core group, tbh. if haughey had managed to start running guns under the counter to the boyos in the north, he would have earned plenty of loyalty from the hardliners north and south, and plenty of the army, gardaí, govt, church, yadda yadda would have been on tha side of the national question to begin with. it's questionable whether he even had any strong convictions that way himself, or whether it was an available route to back-corridor power for him.

required reading re: cowen's attitude upon inheriting the throne

www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0114/1224287488231.html

ppl dont talk enough abt the double pronged blame that cowen is due, as taoiseach AND finance minister

btw why does everyone hate joan burton, i think shes awesome! wkiw.

i think she has problems in both content and deliverance, unlike eg jigga

i love watching her yell at ppl in the dail!

ps i will talk about cowen's double-whatever-opposite-of-indemnity-is all day

thing about haughey/ahern is how small-time they were with their venality, happy to skim off a few grand here and there in between the big thieving

― nakhchivan, Friday, January 14, 2011 1:59 AM (10 hours ago)

um haughey had an island, this seems p big time 2 me.

jesus how'd i miss that?

Haughey spent 8k per shirt when a house in dublin cost 35k.

plax i mean that in between the seven figure payoffs, he was happy to skim a few fat brown envelopes from various smalltime crooks too

it makes sense tho

it was his MO, at every level he ever reached he was a gangster.

pimpin and crimin

xp - One difference between Haughey and a lot of the other cowboys/gombeens was that he had a more international taste in ill-gotten gains; cf. Ahern's anorak image until well after he became Taoiseach.

they're just tacky in diff. ways.

dessie o'malley was jostled during the haughey era as well. it's always seemed to me you must have had to be a dick to thrive in haughey's party.

i agree tho with nakh, it is fucking weird that he would embezzle 50k when he was being given millions. like why? that's getting into actual addiction to stealing shit...

you wonder about albert tho, proved a liar but was he a crook too?

hard to say about albert, i'd say his businesss thrived due to his political connections, but outright thieving prob not.

dear god, ivor callely has had his suspension and the ruling against him revoked or w/e

Legal system in this country is worthy of the finest satire.

i was thinking about how funny it is that u guys were wondering if albert reynolds was a massive crook mainly bc he was taoiseach and what awful things it says about our sinking broken country

it says we're barely out of nappies as a functioning democracy. This might be the first election fought on policy in ireland as opposed to who yer grandad liked, dev or collins.

Basically to survive in Fianna Fail in the 80s you had to be willing to at least tolerate massive corruption, whether or not you were involved in it yourself.

Albert didn't come out so well from the Beef Tribunal iirc.

course the irony is they'll only be able to argue on what they would have done differently, cos we've been fucked since 2008.

Will this election be fought on policy? Can't think of any significant differences, especially given the bailout straightjacket:

Fianna Gael: we're not Fianna Fail
Labour: we're not Fianna Fail, and everyone likes Eamon Gilmore
Fianna Fail: emm...

thats what i was sayin after that re policy, yeah.

FF will be- we're the new FF

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2011/0116/breaking2.html

one of the better ones i suppose

Yeah, Martin is the only hope for FF as ffar as I can tell.

Any feeling about whether Cowen survives the confidence vote? I think he will, though I have nothing to base this on.

the only thing to base it on is his own call to stick around- so if you trust his predictive powers then he should be ok.

i'd be flabbergasted if he winsa now that it's going ahead, myself. but i'm also confused as to why anyone would want to lead FF into this election if they could take over a newly-decimated party afterwards, which is a much stronger starting point in terms of centralising power for a new leader imo.

I reckon the instinct in FF after the election will be to do what the Tories did with Hague and skip to someone untainted by office and young enough to start on the road back. Like Hague, whoever it is could end up never being PM/ Taoiseach. FF's Cameron may still be in school.

well they'll have plenty of new blood running in this next one, but as to how many of them get in....

hanafin and martin prob the best of the likely candidates, but it's looking like cowen stays. which is mindboggling but there you are. the interests of the country that matter win again

lol u fucking cunts lol.

lol

rmflo

lol no shit assholes!

sup cowen. sup

it says we're barely out of nappies as a functioning democracy. This might be the first election fought on policy in ireland as opposed to who yer grandad liked, dev or collins.

― all i gotta do is akh nachivly (darraghmac), Friday, January 14, 2011

labour got 20% in '92, even tho they went into power with ff with it that was a decisive break with the civil war - it's been all personalities & local machinery since then

labour should poll close to twice that this time. Disagree that at a local td level it's not party choice, it is for a large % of the voters out there

also lol

i guess i'm putting party choice down to local machinery

yeah, maybe. I dont know what the difference btwn the two could be.

http://www.independent.ie/multimedia/archive/00184/martin_184226t.jpg

i'll....get....youuuu..yettttttttttttt...potttterrrrr

on like donkey kong

ff ministerial resignations since leadership heave-

Martin, foreign affairs - decent skin, failed leadership bid
O'keeffe - education - cunt, retiring
Harney - health - not the worst, retiring
D ahern - justice- one of the brightest imo, also cunt, retiring
Dempsey - transport - clown, retiring
Killeen - defence - meh no idea tbh, retiring?

Prospective FF leaders after election-

Cowen, incumbent- not much good to anyone. Cunt when pushed.

Lenihan- cunt cunt cunt. Damaged by fence-straddling on leadership heave
Hanafin- i like hanafin a lot
Martin- like this dude too, but probably moved too soon for the gig, tough to run again after.

Martin would be the best imo.

Is there a chance Hanafin could lose her seat? Dun Laoghaire is about the worst place to be banking on entrenched traditional FF voters. FG and Labour obviously get one seat each, possibly two each (Labour seem v. confident), Richard Boyd Barrett just missed out last time and will probably soak up a lot of disenchanted Green voters. That could leave three sitting TDs out of the running, or at best squabbling over the last seat.

Though to be fair 20,000 people gave FF their #1 vote in 2007, it's hard to see how they can fail to elect at least one TD. Still, if they don't make quota early on Hanafin and Andrews will be in for a long night.

it sounds like a free-for-all in that partic constituency, you wouldnt really know how it would go.

Mayo-wise, one ff in the shape of calleary is safe enough, looking at three fg one labour after that, depending on the runners

Looking forward to this election from a pure entertainment view.