Referendum on the bail-out is an idea that appears to be getting traction. Seems the United Left Alliance is divided on it: Joe Higgins unenthusiastic, Richard Boyd Barrett very keen, as are some of the right-0f-centre independents such as Shane Ross. But can the mass of the people understand an issue as complex as this?
I’ve spent the weekend in Louth, chronicling the success of G. Adams in the constituency and the Sinn Fein electoral performance in general. I don’t feel qualified just now to pronounce in any detail about the overall result of the general election except to say that whoever remarked on radio that this was rebellion through the ballot-box put it very well.
I have been away because of a family bereavement but returned this weekend to find evidence of a new militant mood out there.
Before they disappear under the receding wave of time, here are some impressions of the recent elections. In the course of the campaign, some people complained they were boring but the present writer didn’t find that to be the case.
In happier times . . . or maybe not: Gerry Adams (left) and Christy Burke
(Photograph by Matt Kavanagh)
I’m sitting at a table in the middle of the vast indoor auditorium at RDS Simmonscourt, after filing the latest copy on the Dublin euro constituency. In the distance George Hook is holding court at the Newstalk braodcasting stand watched by an audience of political hangers-on and anoraks. All of the Euro candidates are here.
There are tallies galore. With some of them you can read the runes. With others you would be better off reading tealeaves.
Let us get to the nub of what’s happening. (more…)
Campaigns matter. I always cite the example of John Major running for re-election as British Prime Minister in 1992. Almost universally written-off, he famously got out his soapbox and went on the hustings in a successful fight to stay in power.
Well if they won’t have me in Leinster House, I’ll bloody go to Strasbourg (Photograph by Frank Miller) (more…)
Having escaped the odium heaped on their Fianna Fáil partners for so long, public opinion has finally caught up with the Greens. The latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi ratings for the party are abysmal.
Senator Dan Boyle: anxious to avoid the political wilderness (Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons )
It’s Easter and we’re all too worn-out physically, emotionally and above all politically to enjoy the break properly. What a hectic time! But before we start the annual guilty nibbling at those calorie-rich chocolate eggs, let’s take stock of where we are.
Good Friday 1998: John Hume gives thanks for the peace agreement, with Eddie McGrady (left) and Sean Farren (Photograph by Alan Betson) (more…)
One imagines the Cabinet watched the TV footage of today’s trade union protest in Dublin with a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs. Bad enough to have the economy gone pearshaped and the banking system ensnarled by unpaid debts and wide-boy behaviour but now the proletariat is in revolt. (more…)
