Irish politics discussion thread

theres a very strange eye of the storm quality about this moment, from when it became clear that sf were going to absolutely thunder home until theyd essentially spent themselves as far as the candidates theyd run are concerned

in other systems, that momentum would be expected to continue, but we know what the limit is and are waiting for this mad thrashing to cease, and wait for what beasts will win the second stage fight over the scraps sf will leave behind, which will almost certainly be the actual substance of the result

best electoral system in the world, obv

Actually yeah there is something hilarious about Micheál Martin struggling for quota when he’s been elected on the 1st count since 1997.

don't think 74 can include scotland (33) or wales (10) tho deems is correct that a redivision wd be fun and fair

― mark s, Sunday, February 9, 2020 12:59 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

scotland is 32 counties iirc. two 32 county republics by 2030, hwfg

32 local government counties, 33 land registration counties, 34 historical counties

https://i.imgur.com/LqBEHZL.png

why jim are ye busy next week?

Leooooooooo!

meeecccchhkaawwwwl!

latest seat projection should maybe bring home to anyone who might not appreciate how much transfers will affect things:

ff 45, sf 37, fg 36

Izzat 37 seats out of 42 candidates mustered?

I'm not going to pretend I know anything about anything (I don't even know who my Irish friends/relatives/inlaws would be voting for) but I've been enjoying watching people get excited on twitter today

even if the post-transfers numbers will be a lot less exciting it's nice to see a better election system in operation

well, good luck everyone

Izzat 37 seats out of 42 candidates mustered?

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Sunday, 9 February 2020 21:55 (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

this may drive home how unexpected this has been

xp ty aps

i dunno how clear or otherwise ive been about my personal feelings about the rise of sf, but i spose "excitement" is valid, yes

It’s a bit of a redundant point given seat totals above, but FG will absolutely not govern in any capacity with SF. It says a lot about how the two big post civil war parties were able to knock together a confidence and supply; they don’t have enough overlap in voters to threaten each other.

Their aversion to SF has a lot to do with their voter coalition; a lot of your present day FG voters are yr affluent middle aged Dubliners who are outright partitionists, even if they would not consider themselves as such. NB as I keep saying I haven’t lived in Ireland for over a decade so my interpretations may be pretty stale. The partitionist aspect is important - a lot of them see NI as messy and not part of us and they’re too different to have anything but antipathy to SF’s raison d’être.

Whereas FF have always been a lot more republican, they even have the byline The Republican Party. They opposed the Anglo Irish agreement in the 80s because it was seen to move away from the long term view of a United Ireland (articles 2&3 of the constitution, subsequently amended)& while they were eventually the ones who got the GFA over the line, they still remain much more republican in their outlook. Even if the past twenty years of consensus have softened a lot of views on the national question.

Economically too, as deems said, FF are much more inclined to spend than the fucking Blueshirts (I grew up reading about them planning to tax children’s shoes!) and this is more in line with SF’s views too. SF probably think, correctly, that FF are the most likely to give them a border poll. The personal factor here is that Micheál Martin, the current leader of FF, would be the only leader of his party not to become Taoiseach. There’s less of a taboo in going in with SF, maybe because of Charlie Haughey was implicated in gun running to the Provos back in the day (lol).

Think deems is correct FG would largely sit this one out and wait to get back in, we will probably have another election sooner rather than later lol.

Anyway tl;dr not sure if helpful or even true nowadays, but my understanding!

PS fuck the Blueshirts

that covers the essentials def, while certainly covering the personal angle also, irlxpol welcomes gonzo journalism imo

i break from the discussion to report that SF transfers, which are enormous in places, have been lifting pbp et al up into contention

deems, yes, sorry, that was a not very well thought-through word choice, although I've been seeing genuinely excited people on Twitter who I would previously have expected to have somewhat mixed feelings about such a thing, and had to some extent transferred that vibe onto my reading of this thread (wrongly)

fwiw the resident of spacecadet towers with a fada on his passport grumbled something untoward about all politicians from all parties, as he does for all elections in any country, the end

also thanks for the longer analysis gyac, sorry to butt in, butting out again

So Sinn Fein is now the largest party in Ireland, while Unionist parties are in the minority in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Get it up ye, Boris.

that covers the essentials def, while certainly covering the personal angle also, irlxpol welcomes gonzo journalism imo

i break from the discussion to report that SF transfers, which are enormous in places, have been lifting pbp et al up into contention

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQXjh-rU4AAOWzC?format=jpg&name=large

SF overperformed, FG underperformed the exit poll, FF pretty bang on?!

aps never apologise, i was clarifyin merely because it occurred to me i hadnt really noted (and may not) my full personal reaction itt to events

also as always, and i wont stop saying it, an aps post will be viewed as it ought, in the most positive possible light so please stay stuck in here

fuck theres michael mcgrath in, the first ffer to show signs of pugnacity after the crash, hate him

Yeah I saw a transfer left guide doing the rounds
― hyds (gyac), Sunday, 9 February 2020 23:07 (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

saw some controversial fb posts where some sf personalities were seen telling ppl to "vote sf then leave empty" but idk if that was true, or tampered- official message was vote left alright

very useful figure: accumulated transfers from sf

Text version of the latest #surpluswatch - after 13 constituencies, here's where the SF surplus went. #ge2020
PBP - 21700
IND - 9365
SD - 5330
GP - 5286
FF - 5122
I4C - 3646
Lab - 3143
SF - 2187
Aontu - 1900
FG - 1887
NP - 552
RN - 352
IFP - 340
WP - 299
UP - 97
NON TRANSFER - 28

— Sarah isn't here to debate you. (@froodie) February 9, 2020

quick approx count is 60k total if you want to do % analysis

aps never apologise, i was clarifyin merely because it occurred to me i hadnt really noted (and may not) my full personal reaction itt to events

also as always, and i wont stop saying it, an aps post will be viewed as it ought, in the most positive possible light so please stay stuck in here

fuck theres michael mcgrath in, the first ffer to show signs of pugnacity after the crash, hate him

wait did i

shurely not as strongly as ya did yerself anyways wha

frankly

that more ppl arent in here in fuckin AWE at the fuckin CRAIC that the count is is a crying shame

do we need to publicise more, or do they maybe not get it yet

i think silby shows promise, have you one you're sponsoring

29 sf
10 fg
10 ff
5 ind
4 gp
2 pbp
1 aon
1 sd

no labour seat yet

change in 2016 1st pref % for sf is +10.7

change including aontu would be well over 12%

frankly

that more ppl arent in here in fuckin AWE at the fuckin CRAIC that the count is is a crying shame

do we need to publicise more, or do they maybe not get it yet

i think silby shows promise, have you one you're sponsoring

greens in line to get ten to twelve

soc dems did well ito first pref but will transfer better than that again

but along with labour, the sheer strangeness of sf eating it up is going to mean that transfers will go to fg/ff in the first instance and trickle down from there, so having selected the right constituencies is going to be maybe even more critical than usual

xp excellent, excellent

Can’t believe I have to say I’m not a provo, what a world. Esp being from a classic FF family as I am & all.

I read Anna Burns’ Man Booker winner Milkman last year which painted a moving and fascinating picture of life during the troubles which as a world-historical event I was too young to be informed of contemporaneously and too recent/off-topic from the high school curriculum for me to have learned about and so between that and Brexit-adjacent sentiments of Scottish antiunionists I took a new interest in the complicated sovereign and colonial history of yon isles which has some parallel resonance to me as a diasporic Jew disinherited from a string of homelands and so the import of the sudden possible accession to government in Ireland of the folks who at least allegedly were latterly keeping a hand in the maintenance of the stockpiles and the safehouses is of no little interest

Fucking delighted for the greens btw, what seats?

no idea, this is faster than ryder cup matchplay

now fg 12
ff 11

Can’t believe I have to say I’m not a provo, what a world. Esp being from a classic FF family as I am & all.

― hyds (gyac), Sunday, 9 February 2020 23:48 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

look, a bit of advice

ill get the mods to delete that, and we'll just tell everyone youre a provo maybe?

lol as previously established I am neither side of my family’s politics! And I am no’ a grass provo

Greens will surely get in to Fingal on transfers?

See a certain loon struggling to poll there, you love to see it.

hi silby

its probably not the day to understate the troubles as a factor in day to day politics in the republic, but other than it being something that yeah impacts the way many did consider sf as to their legitimacy as a purely political party and yeah brexit raising some bubbles that all involved would rather stayed submerged, i myself would call it a separate issue

but as it happens, today has been transformational, the entire issue is now open in a probably healthy way, the manner in which it must now be addressed by the other parties will have to consign the snide "whiff of cordite" type first resort comeback to history

and sf for its part may have to take (another- credit ofc for their many steps to this point) step towards the full legitimacy they will have to submit to as a party of govt and very certainly part of the establishment. the cracks about cordite have not always imo been without substance neither.

good news, they only have to be no less legitimate than the parties who've been responsible for irish banks and irish cops and who've covered for the irish church, so the standard aint perfection

xp not even the initials, not even thinking them, ive to bless meself now just in case

my god but pat the cope looks powerful good lads, that man built killybegs pier be hand did ye know that

one aspect of my itinerant childhood is that im intimate and interested in a fair few constituencies

i know of thomas pringle and you're as well to elect joe duffy to a seat, hes sliding up and down there after stressing to everyone south of bruckless that the bluestacks to bundoran need a strong independent voice like his

in mayo, north towards ballina mulhern has had an idiosyncratic few years shall we say, hupped into the seanad to keep her current but not frontline after not making it last time, looked frankly dazed beside chambers (more of anon) and saoirse (who was not more coherent than dazed, but as always more engaging) when that trio were showcased on rte live last week

chambers is lagging after fg threw dillon in to make up for an enda-shaped football man gap around ballintubber, chambers herself is a ballyheane woman and both parishes drink in the punch bowl ffs so that was a funny call, she had been heavily involved on brexit and performed credibly, but was up to her neck in the attendance hiccup recently. those two are going to directly battle for the same trough of transfers, and ring was obviously never troubled although for conway walsh to get in on first count was very unexpected- she was a "might get in" and was in fact held to possibly profit from the above fg throatslitting

elsewhere, calleary is likely to get in, and m@nning tallied 67 first preference i think, and none from the island itself

back to you in the studio, claire

dev og might be a decent man about the parish, im sure he is, but hes retrograde ff isnt he, and the dynasty is toxic afaic

count 7 in galway, and dev og short by 44 votes to be first elected yet

first actual serious considered call for a 3 party, 1 year brexit and housing national govt

That’s an obvious ploy to blunt SF’s moment, not a chance

I have been demonstrating (with the help of the RTE site) this to Jen, who's from Scotland, so it's similar but different.

She is impressed, but asked one question that I wasn't sure on - why don't they reduce the quota by the (the right fraction of) the now-unusable votes after each transfer?

I am fairly sure that it makes no difference at all, mind (because if it doesn't get up to the quota then it eventually gets down to the right number of seats).

SF have only two TDs who had to wait for the second count - and one of them was in Dublin Mid West, where the gent in question was waiting on transfers from the SF TD that came in on the first count.

i am utterly enthralled by this professor emeritus talking us through the stats

like a quiet brian cox character turn

finished with wonderful pathos

"older people dont vote, well"

pause

face glum

look down

sotto voce

"older than me anyway. its hard to get out"