Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

Psychologists today warned of the dire consequences if the near-toxic levels of schadenfreude caused by the PD’s demise continue.
For many socialists, liberals, libertarians and plain old democrats, the PD meltdown was a hidden diamond in the race to the centre-right that was election 07.
The removal from office of so many hubristic, egotistical demagogues in one [...]

Again in that Doughty Street discussion one thing became clear was the huge inertia that exists within the Republic’s political system. Hopes of political renewal are often quickly dashed when, as Fintan O’Toole notes in his CiF blog this evening, the election result gives into weeks of internal horsetrading, and out comes an amalgam of [...]

Any floating voters in Dublin North East may be interested in the results of my little local experiment.
The constituency is quite broad in that it extends from Howth and Sutton to Darndale and Coolock. I am in the Darndale/Coolock end of the constituency and I had hoped to be proved right that all our candidates [...]

Do you know why a Politician is like a good pint?
After you fill the pint with brown stuff, it starts to empty.
After you slip the politician the brown envelope, it starts to empty.

and you just can’t keep either of them filled up

What was that about? Were they talking about Afghanistan?

Inspired by an earlier conversation with Damien. Certainly not inspired by whazzizname off the telly, you know, that twat in the suit. Not Bertie, the other twat.

Callely’s rabbits, Pole Up The Hole, Spliffogate, and now Willie O’Dea exercises his willie live on Today FM:
“This morning Mary O’Connor from Lisnagry, Co. Limerick was the envy of every young girl in the country…ahem!
The obsessed fan finally had her dreams come true and this morning she met her idol….eh…Willie O Dea!

Mary even managed to [...]

UPDATE: Ruairi Quinn has but didn’t inhale, and Willie O’Dea thought he had, but actually got shit-faced off a ciggie. Interviews on Lunchtime on Newstalk today.

Rumble in Ranelagh

Since the advent of our 24-hour news culture, I have noticed a marked increase in downright lazy journalism in the mainstream media.
Added to the raging torrent of coalition speculation and BertieGate updates, opinion polls continue to drown even the most fundamental policy issues in this election campaign.
Analyzing these surveys is to reporting what diving [...]

Originally posted on Green Ink:
The current crop of PD election material features the cartoons below. Following on from Simon’s accurate analysis of the battery imagery, not to mention the implicit fatalism of the Don’t Throw It All Away campaign, I have to say these fail to offer anything but the image of a party in [...]

Irish Anarchist Organistion, the Workers Solidarity Movement, today launched a campaign to encourage public understanding of our democratic system in the run up to the general election. The campaign will focus on groups such as young people, the working class and ethnic minorities, who have a history of high rates of abstention.
The campaign launched with [...]

Canvasser originally posted this at the Cedar Lounge Revolution.
Don’t believe the newspapers. The real campaign kicked off in the early New Year for the Candidate. This was the point at which people were contacted as regards their ‘availability’. Availability to leaflet that is.
The Candidate doesn’t have the resources of the larger formations and depends [...]

The PDs want to lose

McDowell warns about prison contraband