Ireland General Discussion

[ObserverIE]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

The new 'Independents Alliance' party would be ANEL. Although SF = SYRIZA is not a point I would emphasize too much.

Nah, SF = Syriza is a bit of light trolling.

How much of the 27% independents and others in that last poll would go to the Independents Alliance? And who are the rest?

Difficult to say. Won't be large. The rest of independents/others are a mixture of ex-political party politicos (from all parties), local interest trolls, soft left community activists/campaigners and various far left groupings.

The problem for the "Independent Alliance" is that social conservatives are not necessarily (or even usually) economic right-wingers or vice versa. Lucinda might be aiming for the union of the two sets but end up only with the intersection.

Denis Naughten (another member of the Reform Alliance who left over the closure of ER facilities at his local hospital when Kenny had explicitly promised during the election campaign to keep it open - Kenny then denied ever making the promise until the tape recording surfaced) was interviewed on Prime Time the other week and focused on the waste of public money on support for asylum seekers and on child benefit for "children who don't exist" (usually code for the children of EU-27 migrant workers). It's possible that the Tea Party may focus on the soft racist vote as a more fertile source of support than hard-right economics.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

The new 'Independents Alliance' party would be ANEL. Although SF = SYRIZA is not a point I would emphasize too much.

Nah, SF = Syriza is a bit of light trolling.

How much of the 27% independents and others in that last poll would go to the Independents Alliance? And who are the rest?

Difficult to say. Won't be large. The rest of independents/others are a mixture of ex-political party politicos (from all parties), local interest trolls, soft left community activists/campaigners and various far left groupings.

The problem for the "Independent Alliance" is that social conservatives are not necessarily (or even usually) economic right-wingers or vice versa. Lucinda might be aiming for the union of the two sets but end up only with the intersection.

Denis Naughten (another member of the Reform Alliance who left over the closure of ER facilities at his local hospital when Kenny had explicitly promised during the election campaign to keep it open - Kenny then denied ever making the promise until the tape recording surfaced) was interviewed on Prime Time the other week and focused on the waste of public money on support for asylum seekers and on child benefit for "children who don't exist" (usually code for the children of EU-27 migrant workers). It's possible that the Tea Party may focus on the soft racist vote as a more fertile source of support than hard-right economics.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

Yet.  They have no Golden Dawn yet.

[minionofmidas]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

The new 'Independents Alliance' party would be ANEL. Although SF = SYRIZA is not a point I would emphasize too much.

Nah, SF = Syriza is a bit of light trolling.

How much of the 27% independents and others in that last poll would go to the Independents Alliance? And who are the rest?

Difficult to say. Won't be large. The rest of independents/others are a mixture of ex-political party politicos (from all parties), local interest trolls, soft left community activists/campaigners and various far left groupings.

The point being that most individial indies are a mixture of two or even three of these.

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

FF are more PASOK (in terms of their position in the political ecosystem) than they are ND. FG are certainly ND, though.

Though that's mostly because PASOK are more FF than they are Labour.

Which is of course related to the fact that neither Ireland nor Greece are traditional first world nations and both countries' political systems have roots old and strong enough to still reflect that.

[ObserverIE]

Seems that Irish politics has gone the way of Greece.

With Sinn Fein as Syriza and Labour as Pasok it kinda makes sense. Still, they have two versions of ND.

Not sure who would be ANEL and they, thankfully, have no Golden Dawn.

Yet.  They have no Golden Dawn yet.

Thankfully we have no sign of one.

SF are able to appeal to nationalism and Euroscepticism (using the term as it should be used rather than as a euphemism for xenophobia) but position themselves as being left-of-centre and as being anti-racist (based on links with groups such as the ANC). The other main protest parties (SP, SWP) are well to the left of SF.

FG might, in other circumstances, make noises about immigrants and law-and-order to appeal to the racist vote, but are in government and are primarily associated with austerity measures that are hitting the working and middle classes hard.

That leaves a couple of micro groups and obvious loons without any credibility or obvious popular appeal or the capability to attract same.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

I don't think there's such scope for a Golden Dawn-type party here; the nature of our institutions and the particularly popular (and populist) nature of Irish nationalism works against that.

[Simfan34]

BLUESHIRTS MK2.

It didn't work well the first time. It won't the second time, indeed, it'd be more of a joke the second time around.

[politicus]

I don't think there's such scope for a Golden Dawn-type party here; the nature of our institutions and the particularly popular (and populist) nature of Irish nationalism works against that.

The second part is obvious (and crucial IMO), but what do you mean by "the nature of our institutions"? The election system?

[politicus]

BLUESHIRTS MK2.

It didn't work well the first time. It won't the second time, indeed, it'd be more of a joke the second time around.

Somehow it doesn't look right when Irish people do that kind of thing.

[minionofmidas]

Many Irishmen heard the call of Franco
Joined Hitler and Mussolini too
Propaganda from the pulpit and newspapers
Helped O'Duffy to gather up his crew
 
The word came from the church, 'support the Nazis'
The men of cloth failed us again
When the bishops blessed the Blueshirts in Dun Laoghaire
As they sailed beneath the swastika to Spain

[ObserverIE]

In Ireland Nazi officer is more sympathic character than the Brittish one (seen in one document).

Eh?

[Oakvale]

I don't know what you're talking about. If your point is that some parts of Irish society where sympathetic to the Nazis (or the Germans, really) during World War II, that's true but only due to them not being the British rather than any ideological affection for fascism. There's a reason the Blueshirts were pretty much a joke (although de Valera doing the smart thing and banning them didn't hurt).

In other, more grim news, the government's apparently establishing a cross-party commission to investigate these mass graves we've been hearing about. One of the (few) things Enda's been really quite good at is confronting the malign legacy of the Catholic state, which I wouldn't necessarily have expected from a career TD in his sixties from Mayo, so this is heartening.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

New RedC poll and it's a doozy

FG: 22 (-3)
Lab: 4 (-7)
FF: 18 (-3)
SF: 22 (-4)
IND/OTH: 32 (+9)

Probably an outlier - but still LOL.

[ObserverIE]

New RedC poll and it's a doozy

FG: 22 (-3)
Lab: 4 (-7)
FF: 18 (-3)
SF: 22 (-4)
IND/OTH: 32 (+9)

Probably an outlier - but still LOL.

GP 2 (-1)

Note: The SF change figure should be +4

Well, it's the second outlier in a week or so.

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http://www.redcresearch.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Paddy-Power-June-2014-Poll-Report-Final.pdf

The thing about RedC is that its methodology (assumptions about turnout and the likelihood of undecided voters to return to the parties whence they came) should be relatively friendly to unpopular governing parties and unfriendly to SF.

[minionofmidas]

A bookie is who's paying them for regular political polls? Lol Ireland.

[ObserverIE]

A bookie is who's paying them for regular political polls? Lol Ireland.

Most of the newspapers are nearly broke... (although the Business Post has a monthly poll with RedC - the Paddy Power series is less regular).

I don't have a particularly high opinion of RedC (there's a lot of hot air about them being the "gold standard" of polling, but excluding what happened with the original gold standard, their main selling point is the frequency with which they produce results).

One point that's not getting attention in the focus on the Walking Dead is that 22% is as low as FG have ever been in a RedC poll (and it may also be as high as SF have ever been). Update: I tell a lie: they were on 21% in January 2007; other figures in the poll were FF 42, Lab 12, GP 7, SF 7, PD 3 and Ind/Oth 8.

Ipsos/MRBI are more reliable (and actually got the only reasonably good forecast of the local election vote) but they poll only intermittently for the Irish Times and don't release internals.

[Oakvale]

That poll's numbers on the Labour leadership are quite interesting. lol Alex White.

[minionofmidas]

I found something in my Myles na Gopaleen collection the other day that seems to fit the Ireland of today quite well.

(...) Take this Ireland. You have various nations - the Orange nation, the Cork nation, the Wexford republic and so forth. They are all immature, and for convenience collectively known as Irishmen. Set in the middle of them, as costly carbuncle in a golden frame, is the dominant (and therefore the most disillusioned) nation: naturally I mean the Dublin Man.
He is immured in the historic Pale: to him, Ireland is composed of hostile tribes, various rough fellows in the interior, sects, ritual murderers, mystics, provincial university students, poets, Roman Catholics (...)
[There follows a pub conversation between an Irish Man and a Dublin Man on the eve of an election]
IM: Well, what is your best guess for Wednesday?
DM: (talks about horse betting)
IM: I'm sorry. I meant the elections.
DM: The whaaaaa?
IM: You know, the elections. The Government.
DM: The... the Gov... ment? THAT crowd?
IM: Yes. I was wondering which of the parties is going to get in this time.
(...)
DM: WHO'S GOING TO GET IN? I wouldn't mind if it was a question of getting into the sea off the Aran Islands where it's four miles deep.
IM: Well, do you think Fine Gael will form a government?
(...)
DM: THAT crowd? My dear man, I seen that crowd. I known that crowd very well. I seen them and I seen their fathers. I will tell you one thing about that crowd. That crowd is. No. Good.
IM: Well, I mean...
DM: Nor never was any good. (..., lengthy civil war anecdote) I needn't tell you, of course, that all that crowd has pensions now.
IM: Perhaps you think Fianna Fáil should form a government?
DM: I suppose you're joking? That crowd is all mad. But they done all right out of their madness.
IM: Perhaps then a coalition of all parties under the leadership of De Valera?
DM: Who? Say that again.
IM: De Valera...
DM: Dev a lera? You mean the fellow that went to America? But shure me dear man that fellow's as mad a hatter.
IM: Maybe the country might for a change try a Labour government, with Bill Norton at the helm.
DM: I met all that Labour crowd in the old days. I seen them, I built suits on their fathers. (...) And I'll tell you one thing about that crowd. They're no damn good to anybody. Nor never was any good to anybody.
IM (throws some obscure backbench names out)
DM: I will tell you what I would do with that pair, I would tie the two of them into the one good big sack and put them into the Liffey at high tide and it would be good riddance to bad rubbish, now do you understand me?
(...)

[ObserverIE]

I found something in my Myles na Gopaleen collection the other day that seems to fit the Ireland of today quite well.

The Begrudger's Guide to Irish Politics by Breandán Ó hEithir, if you haven't come across it already, is well worth reading in a somewhat similar vein. Written in the mid to late 80s, but most of the insights still hold.

[minionofmidas]

Never heard of. Wikipedia tells me he used to be a member of a party that

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, though, and I can approve only of the second and the last of these objectives.

[ObserverIE]

Ó hEithir had travelled a long, long way from Ailtirí na hAiséirghe by the time he wrote the book.

[ObserverIE]

From today's Irish Times, Labour party memberships per constituency (overall paid-up membership is down from 4,600 in 2007 to 3,265 now):

Dublin Bay South 240
Longford-Westmeath 198
Tipperary 195
Kerry 167
Dún Laoghaire 155
Dublin Bay North 148
Carlow-Kilkenny 134
Kildare North 130
Dublin Rathdown 124
Dublin Fingal 107
Waterford 99
Dublin West 96
Wexford 93
Dublin Central 92
Dublin Mid West 91
Cork North Central 90
Galway West 88
Cork South Central 85
Wicklow 83
Dublin South West 79
Limerick City 73
Dublin South Central 70
Louth 55
Meath East 50
Clare 44
Cork South West 44
Galway East 41
Cork East 40
Dublin North West 35
Laois 33
Cork North West 31
Sligo-Leitrim 28
Kildare South 25
Roscommon-Galway 22
Donegal 21
Meath West 20
Mayo 15
Cavan-Monaghan 9
Offaly 7
Limerick County 4

Head office 104

Those familiar with the social geography of Dublin will find the numbers instructive. Dublin North West and Dublin South Central stick out a mile.

Longford-Westmeath is the one where nobody wanted to stand as a candidate in the by-election.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Kildare South is perhaps the most revealing one, given that they didn't do that badly in the locals there and have a TD to boot. Now why might that be....

[ObserverIE]

Kildare South is perhaps the most revealing one, given that they didn't do that badly in the locals there and have a TD to boot. Now why might that be....

Family franchise (although so are Kerry and - to a very large extent - Longford-Westmeath) where possible rivals to the succession have been pushed out. Cork East is also remarkably small - although there you had two competing family franchises in Mallow (Sherlock - Sticky) and Cóbh (Mulvihill - old Labour).

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Kildare South is perhaps the most revealing one, given that they didn't do that badly in the locals there and have a TD to boot. Now why might that be....

Family franchise (although so are Kerry and - to a very large extent - Longford-Westmeath) where possible rivals to the succession have been pushed out. Cork East is also remarkably small - although there you had two competing family franchises in Mallow (Sherlock - Sticky) and Cóbh (Mulvihill - old Labour).

That was a rhetorical question .