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

There is that old saying I like. No Tax without representation. But despite the normal interpretation there is another way you can read it. No representation without tax. Basically why should people have a say in how we run our country if they don’t have any input to it or dependence on it. Now I [...]

Strange, reading this earlier today. The policing issue has clearly become crucial to the further implementation of the Good Friday Agreement in it’s current form. And yet the news emanating from both Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party is far from good. Firstly, and this is hardly a surprise, I entirely support the GFA [...]

It seems that Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland is having a hard time convincing its people to accept policing, with reports of some IRA members aligning themselves to so-called dissident Republicans with a view to derailing the peace process, perhaps even by targeting the Sinn Fein top-brass themselves. With all this going on in Northern [...]

I’m wondering if I was the only one this morning who felt that the Archbishop Brady/Dr. Paisley meeting earlier today might well be a harbinger of an unintended consequence of the Peace Process. Hearing Archbishop Brady talking about the central position of “marriage and the family” and “faith-based” education struck me as rather intriguing. After [...]

Okay, away from the hub-bub about Bertie and Manchester and who paid what when and to whom let’s calm ourselves and look at a counterfactual that, while having relatively little bearing on the current state of affairs, may at least explicate some of the dynamics of contemporary Irish political parties as they rush headlong to [...]

The DUP have beaten Blair and Ahern up on this point for ages now. Ahern won’t accept Sinn Fein so why should Paisley? However as the deadline draws near and IMC reports take on positive hues, the complexion of Northern Politics may be in for another makeover.

Bound to be more on Slugger on this soon;

Killian Forde of Sinn Fein has written the following in response to Gay Mitchells original proposal regarding the role of the monarch in a 32 county Ireland.

I am a republican in much the same ways as I think the vast vast majority of people in Ireland are. i.e. Everyone is created equal and no body by virtue of their birth should be considered better then someone else. You would think most Irish people would agree with that however it seems that [...]

The latest Sunday Business Post/Red C opinion poll shows Fianna Fáil support rock solid at 35%. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has previously called this poll standing ‘acceptable enough’, and he seems confident that it provides a firm foundation for the party’s 2007 election campaign. I was polled by Red C last week and, as well as [...]

Coffee with Killian Killian Forde (SF) Talks Globalisation with IrishElection.com Frank — Killian, you’ve praised ‘the coming together of the broad left in Europe’ against the Services Directive, and you said the global left has been ‘ideologically drifting, defensive and struggling to articulate a credible alternative’. You expressed satisfaction with the defeat of right-wing MEPs [...]

This Easter, as people are no doubt aware, marks the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Rising which occurred in Dublin, Galway and other scattered parts throughout Ireland and involved members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBán and various smaller groups (such as the Hibernian Rifles) and myriad individuals who joined [...]