Irish politics discussion thread

What have I missed, Michael? And I don't count stuff like The Wind that Shakes the Barley, though I was honestly close to trying to explain pom the politics of Sinn Fein based on the landlord-in-court scene from that film.

SF elections mastermind Damhnaic 'O' Cummings will be wanting a word with you, darragh.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, 10 February 2020 17:05 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

vaguely threatened by this

(Galway West FG TD on the 13th count) Hildegarde Naughton is a classically trained soprano, and in 2008 won the Association of Irish Musical Societies' Best Actress award for her role as Eliza Doolittle in the Galway Patrician Musical Society's production of My Fair Lady.

checks out

@Fred B

if youre looking for something about Irish politics/culture, you cant go wrong with the Rocky Road To Dublin documentary from '68

then theres the usual suspects: jim sheridan, neil jordan, lenny abrahamson

the quiet man

That's what I call Fred too.

ryans daughter
the field
darkman

Thanks Michael. I checked out their filmographies, and I have in fact wanted to watch Get Rich or Die Tryin' for a while.

the most Gaelic of the lot

Wait a minute, I watched Black 47 by Lance Daly at Berlin last year! That counts.

Sorry for the digression. Carry on.

this is an irish film i liked: https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/film-week-silence

lads

26 seats left to fill

i havent been at the tv all day, and the liveblogs available havent imo made a great job of spelling out what can or should go where in each remaining race, but the seat predictions last available reckon ff/fg split c.20 of them, and the rest pretty much go evenly to greens/sd/labour

id be very surprised if there arent inds, an sf, maybe a pbp in there somewhere but i really havent been keeping up tbh

Greens up to 4th of 5 in Dublin South-West, which has just put through a PBP candidate.

I'd like to do a study of what the average transfer pattern was for each party - but I'd like more if someone had already done it?

ill keep an eye out, i posted something that looked at SF total transfers to others last night late and im sure it will be available at some stage

id caveat an average tho, geography/local ground has been a major factor in transfers and parties have been surprised throughout by unpredictability

donegal is crazy tight

After the transfer of Harley's votes it's neck and neck at the top. Joe McHugh with a huge leap. Count 8 results.

McHugh +1932 10920
Pringle +514 10755
McConalogue +216 10270
Gallagher +628 10146

It all comes down to John O'Donnell's preferences @RTEDonegal #GE2020 pic.twitter.com/VMgpGsu1l7

— Oisín Bradley (@oisinbradley) February 10, 2020

If the music stopped right now, it'd be 2 each to SD / Greens / Labour, 4 each to FG and independents, and 12 to FF!

Now there's maybe a few constituencies where the FF in the medals might fall out because FG have ran three instead.

7000 independent transfers are about to hit that spread, incredible xp

FF wouldve been furious with < 50 seats on Wednesday last, i think

theyd take 37 right now i guess

Yeah, fair point about the averages

(connoisseurs of the partisan transfer might want to have a look at Cork East)

I'm more struck by the people I know who'd rather have set themselves on fire than vote Green after 2011, and whether that's mellowed - where are the Green transfers coming from, are there PBP/Green ballot papers?

best electoral system in the world, obv

green are taking them from everywhere imo

the conversation has moved forward

also, that green party was particularly dunderheaded in what it gained for supporting FF

frankly, labour had a lot better of a story to spin vs FF or greens ito what they sacrificed to stay in govt and what was gained, but they have been utterly passive ever since getting flung out and not turning over their candidates was a huge error.

i must try to see where they and the sd's differ or align, because thatvis exactly the type of energy and moves they shouldve been making, and the points and votes heading SF way now could imo quite plausibly have been in large part a labour surge this time round.

tldr- fuckin voters mayne they break yr heart

Dublin SW & Wickla in the verge of throwing us two more TDs is it? (Also, transfers aaaagh).

Two more Green TDs, I should say.

I remember it being said (possibly on this thread!) that if Labour wanted to stand for anything, they should have let FG run a minority government after 2011 rather than let FF don the robes of the official opposition.

im on the feckin bus ffs, keep me informed pls

lab shouldve left fg to it? i think their motives and beliefs were sincere and i dont know were they "wrong" but politically, eek gluck

looks like Pringle over Pat the Cope

jaysus

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gallagher_(academic)

i think this is the glum/characterful prof from last night gyac, based on his voice on rte radio atm

he sounds much cheerier today but v affable, v easy to listen to

"best electoral system in the world, obv"

when some of the worst pundits in the UK are feigning confusion and saying it is inscrutable and bad then it must be good tbh.

The only news in the last half hour (apart from late-breaking Donegal xps!) is that Kerry's last seat went to FF and the third seat in Laois-Offaly went to Charlie Flanagan of FG. And now I'm getting on my bike.

Laois-Offaly is ALMOST always last, ye have to drag the fifth seat out of us. Insert your cruel joke about boggers here. Charlie can consider himself chastened for his RIC shite. Where is a good livestream for this that works on mobile? Donegal is due shortly after 7.

The FF transfer in Wicklow has pushed the Green to 5th of 5, and next up will be transfers from the lowest of the three FG* - if they were superhumanly scheming, the other two might get a chance? There's an independent to go next after, anyway.

* if we don't like Timmys, how do we feel about Billy Timmins, in many ways the opposite name?

xp It's up now, as NN says The Cope is out, by 350 votes.

Btw I just want to point out that this winner got absolutely steamrollered by the electorate.

In the run up to the 2020 general election, she was broadly criticised for tweeting a photograph of her campaign van parked on a footpath. Among those critical of her actions, and her response to criticism, was disability activist Joanne O'Riordan who accused Senator Noone of making "the lives of people with disabilities harder to live". Noone initially tweeted that people should "get a grip" and cease complaining, but then deleted the tweet, and later apologised.

In the same election campaign, she referred to the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar as "Autistic", before denying having said it. Having been made aware that her remarks were recorded, she said that she didn't mean to use the word in that context and gave examples of potentially offensive words that could be used out of context, including "special" and "n***er". She then clarified that she would never use the n-word, and said it was a bad example. On 28 January 2020 she issued an apology.

However, the apology was not accepted by leading Autism and Asperger campaigner Fiona Ferris, the deputy chief executive of AsIAm, an autism charity who called for Noone and other politicians to learn about Autism. Ferris, expanding on her remarks, added "If we go about the attitude that people can say whatever they want and then totally withdraw a statement, I mean, the world would not be a very nice place."Carly Bailey, a candidate in the 2020 election and a parent of a son with Autism added in separate comments that "her words have hurt a great many people on the autism spectrum and their families."

The FF transfer in Wicklow has pushed the Green to 5th of 5, and next up will be transfers from the lowest of the three FG* - if they were superhumanly scheming, the other two might get a chance? There's an independent to go next after, anyway.

* if we don't like Timmys, how do we feel about Billy Timmins, in many ways the opposite name?

The RTE site works pretty well on my mobile, which is a nice surprise.

Was it official though AF? RTÉ Donegal have only just tweeted it, and you’d assume they’d be in haste to get the drinks in after that.

Pat the Cope Gallagher has lost his seat, Thomas Pringle, Joe McHugh and Charlie McConalogue have been elected without the reaching the quota on the 9th and final count

— RTÉdonegal (@RTEDonegal) February 10, 2020

Joe McHugh - 12,104 ELECTED
Thomas Pringle - 12,245 ELECTED
Charlie McConalogue - 11,432 ELECTED
Pat the Cope Gallagher - 11,074

*reads wikipedia page* so this guy is named after…a grocery store?

ah more of a Target

Wicklow only have one TD elected on count 12?! Jesus Christ!

No yeah I only mean it was official (on RTE) when I posted it, they had it time stamped 18:56.

* if we don't like Timmys, how do we feel about Billy Timmins, in many ways the opposite name?

As they (almost) (used to) sing at Ibrox Park every other weekend, I'd rather be a Billy than a Timmy.

👋🏻 @ silby, always good to see you

Sligo-Leitrim one TD seated after count 13? Come the fuck on, lads!

if i could sweat onions like sligo sweats candidates id be masterchef

Another nickname candidate is Kevin “Boxer” Moran in Longford-Westmeath. Idk much about him but he seems ok? Anyway this is hilarious.

Moran is often referred to by the nickname "Boxer", a nickname which arose from him hitting an opponent in a football game at the age of 12.

From my 2nd favourite RTÉ article of the day (this is the 1st):

In 2020 the left vote rose to unprecedented heights.

Defining the left as including Sinn Féin, Solidarity/PBP, Social Democrats, Labour and Greens gives a figure of 42%.

Arguably this might be augmented by a few independents, but this would not add much.

How far everyone in this grouping might agree with my classification is another matter, but I think most observers outside the country would agree with my grouping, although whether the Greens are really a left movement is widely debated.

Voters who were voting left and transferring left seem to have done so more between SF and Solidarity/PBP than between either of these and Labour.

Academic analyses has found that voters for all these parties tend to identify themselves as 'left, although that is not to say that their policy preferences accord with what we might expect of someone on the left: they certainly often favour tax cuts over spending on social services, and are wary of state intervention in economic affairs.