Irish politics discussion thread

Britvic discontinued its Drench and Pennine Spring water brands in Britain in favour of Ballygowan

interesting footnote in bottled water history: Yorkshire couldn't boast that the natural spring under the old Ben Shaws factory was holy and used by the Knights Templar + got completely owned by Limerick!

I've never quite worked out Irish pay rates. an inlaw was earning 45k in her 1st entry-level admin job in Dublin several years back which made us go ???* but that side of the family always seems to land on its feet and be oblivious to their good fortune so I hesitate to assume it's representative

* our confusion was that this sounded like a lot, just to clarify, seeing as we had a conversation at cross-purposes with step-MIL along similar lines at one point, where we expressed surprise at someone (else)'s salary bcz it sounded high to us and she agreed with our surprise then said "that's terrible, how can anyone live on that?" uh... never mind

― a passing spacecadet, Sunday, 4 August 2019 18:53 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hi aps

felt it rather better to bring it here

i take it this offspring sprung off from a reasonably comfortable family? nothing unusual in the phenomenon that aspirations/understanding of what is tolerable is as tied to the manner and modes in which one (or one's family) has become accustomed to living over here as it is anywhere else.

South dublin would be the very typical base of the type of dynasty that would certainly be disappointed if fiachra had to settle for anything less than 65k after getting out of trinners, for instance, because fiachra could hardly be expected to get a season ticket at donnybrook and a two bed in ranelagh for himself on anything less than that.

dublin is v liveable in or around 40k imo, and by that i mean flaneur about town* type of living**

*the cheaper but better parts obv

**please note the flaneur never aspires to owning an actual property within commuting distance

c.28k is about right as NN says for a starter out of a generic college course, your choice of career depending you should fly up from that or not etc etc

down the country you can live on about a fiver a month, thats to own and run a fair sized village inc blacksmith and a working port

seems that we'll be getting a brexit then, whether the huge majority makes it more or less likely towards the no-deal end of the spectrum a matter of some debate.

otherwise, a GE will be likely in feb, and if trends across the water are any indicator a return of some sort for fg would be in order

online chatter would have them out, obv, but i think we've seen how unreliable that actually is tbf

https://www.redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/SBP-November-2019-Poll-Report.pdf

Fascinated by the demo breakdowns here - big gap between FF & FG with female voters? Old people being blueshirts is clear enough.

interesting alright.

i dont know that FF would go for another stint in the current setup, certainly it would be fuel for mcgrath to push against martin if he tried it

fg(or ff)/green/lab ticks a lot of boxes if a coherent manifesto could come out of it at all

wonder if the latter two would have any interest in a pre-pact themselves to see what they could eke out

thing about old people, they tend to be replaced in their age group by old people

im not sure that will stay true as successive generations experience a lower quality of life, youd think/hope not, but as an electorate i also think we tend to weight up any putative alternative option quite warily also?

Surely same factors at home as over here? But ia, civil war politics is a hell of a drug. I always laugh at people here who call themselves “politically homeless” but then if I did move home I don’t know who I’d ever vote for.

Also, I can’t stop thinking about John Finucane.

FG in 5th place with 'the kids' is interesting, but presumably incumbency counts for some of that?

(a bad paddy asks) What caused the drop off in independent support in 2016? Specific issues, or "I was able to picture myself giving them my first preference, and burst out in giggles"? Or was it just that it crystallised out into Renua / Social Democrats / Solidarity?

idk, i mean over there brexit just got into everything

theres some trepidation here about the place, but i really dont get the impression that most ppl would have it in mind as voting approaches. key that whatever happens or doesn't wont be any party's fault on this side, really.

other than that, there's about three different countries voting- comfortable/not, homeowner/not, rural/dub.

theres not a majority out of any of them, and yeah civil war or not the central two are the vehicles we have one way or the other, which is why i think green/lab key and might actually have their pick

fg unpopular, have been ruling to not-great results on the things key to the left, bit can still point to hand they were dealt, referendums were nice werent they, stability, yadda yadda

ff a more natural ally on the spectrum, have facilitated stability while not being to blame for anything as such, but eesh its ff yknow

the range of quite-likely results is quite energising tbh

(xp)

I caught a discussion between the main parties on Brexit when I was over in October - it was very civil, which was nice.

Yeah, I'd kill to have a graph that looked like that in the UK, even with most of them bowsies.

andrew, if i had to guess (cause i sure dont remember actual events) id cynically say that independents are an easy bunch to threaten to vote for between elections (and particularly in those few years) and that threat shrivelled back to normal-or-thereabouts vote spread for them when an actual election happened

id be surprised if the independents propping up this govt didnt see a fall again from the 2016 result.

people will go back to parties, but possibly not the bigger ones

FG in 5th place with 'the kids' is interesting, but presumably incumbency counts for some of that?

(a bad paddy asks) What caused the drop off in independent support in 2016? Specific issues, or "I was able to picture myself giving them my first preference, and burst out in giggles"? Or was it just that it crystallised out into Renua / Social Democrats / Solidarity?

this is pretty much it

pleasantly surprised how quickly its been visited on him, tbf

ahhhhhhhhh

mary lou, paschal, joe are in my constituency

isnt that a foine range of headliners anyway

Paschal is a classic Irish name. I know it’s not one of ours but I’ve never met a non-Irish one. Same as Jarlath.

fuck what dyou mean not ours

shook

ah chrisht the walls are falling in and i come in here for a bit of comfort and youve set the floor alight on me now

french!

quick guirt sez jarlath is still solid tho?

Yeah Jarlath (Iarlaith!) is rock solid Irish.

ok phew i thought yr "same with" covered origin as opposed to never meeting etc

my middle name is Paschal lol

The word "paschal" is the equivalent of Greek "pascha" and is derived from Aramaic "pasḥā" and Hebrew "pesaḥ", meaning "the passing over" (cf. Ex 12:13.23.27; cf. Is 31,5). The origin is not known. Some scholars refer to Assyrian "pasah" – appease or Egyptian "pa-sh" – remembrance or "pē-sah" – the blow. The Bible links "pesaḥ" with "pāsaḥ" – two literal meanings are: to limp and to perform a ritual dance around a sacrifice (1 K 18:21.26). Figuratively it may be understood, "to jump", "to pass", "to spare". It refers to the passage of God on the Passover night, when the Israelites left Egypt. God struck the houses of Egyptians and left the Israelites untouched, i.e. passed over.

jaysus all the way back ha?

lads

ive a very good mate, sound socialist working man now not like meself, but hes badly afflicted

his brothers mot is running for the ... bad guys

which ones

srsly now, the very bad ones, yknow

I didn’t know Renua were still going

worse!

_oh_

I was looking at their list of candidates and it's striking seeing the varied realms of madness behind their eyes that they all describe themselves as "a first-time Dáil candidate for the N4tional P4rty" - I'm not sure that'll go as high on your CVs as you think, folks.

hes appalled obv but hes staying informed for the stories

he got a manifesto to spellcheck a while back i shit u not

Christ. What is it, make Ireland 99% white again?

give or take

dont be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the National Party!

I’m sure we’ve discussed this site before but this crowd are doing God’s work imo

Some great archive stuff of Dev, Bertie and others, but ofc I see this cunt up first
https://irishelectionliterature.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/paul-mcweeney-a.jpg

https://irishelectionliterature.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/paul-mcweeney-b.jpg

I mean, this emigrant would like to return, but something about this guy makes me think he wouldn’t be welcoming my husband.

shit theres a big possibility i work with a sister of his and all

sad lol

Know that thing where you're trying to climb down from calling someone autistic, so you start randomly saying the n-word, on record, to The Times? pic.twitter.com/v3KUlB77CV

— Séamas It Ever Was (@shockproofbeats) January 28, 2020

The parents seem to think FG will be out after this election. Who would FF go in with? The Brits are in for a rude shock if they celebrate Leo going.

Lol Eilis O Hanlon, how the fuck is she still alive

By stoking toxic Anglophobia, Leo Varadkar is digging his own political grave | Eilis O'Hanlon https://t.co/4QvJGLSHCs

— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) January 29, 2020

People in the Irish Republic always liked to boast that they were above the tribal hostilities of the North

ah thats a northern/shinner trope for a large part, with various currents of truth running through it at different times or in different contexts maybe

who should or who will ff go in with?

have to say theyre bullish enough towards everyone atm, not sure theyre even making noises about making fg sit second bench in a reversal scenario

i think ff/ind is too much a stretch, but even if lab/greens could make up the numbers without the more Impossible independents (whose numbers id think should fall hard in the event of a voter return to lab/ff) could a programme for govt arise from suchba coalition, and would the last ff/l/g govt not yknow remain in the memory?

*shrug*

right

not to say things is perfect, obv

but

notwithstanding eh tbh bias in reporting and/or bias in what one chooses to read of what's available and reported inherent

irelands good compared to some of the larger ilx brand countries

dont @ me pls i live there, and anyway we need to get over that to get to the next rather simple point

two big fuckin homogeneous-abouts lumps of central parties are a good thing if they continue to rotate about each other without forming one sun and the electorate can flavour the options for forming coherent govt effectively

discuss

just the small questions then

this seems to include -

realistically what's the best you can hope for from government?

is there an optimal size of nation state if we must have such things, and aren't there serious economic advantages to nation states that aren't saddled with delusions of imperial grandeur?

yr two "central" parties well i don't think anybody's come to a broad agreement about where the centre is but given the general point aren't you close to describing the advantages of a one-party state with a shifting cast of aparatchiks?

Are you basically saying a bigger Sinn Fein, for example, is a threat to a strong and stable middle?