Elections
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How appropriate at Samhain to turn to some ghouls. A spectre is haunting Ireland, the spectre of Fascism. The Far Right cannot get one of their own onto the ballot paper, but they have managed to make themselves into the story, with the compliance of the Liberal Right more keen to report on empty ballots…
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The headline of the election of the new Uachtarán na hÉireann is of course, the extraordinary election of Catherine Connolly herself. Her pretty flawless campaign demonstrated not only her principles but also an unexpected and astonishing ability to keep a ball in the air. We have maintained the tradition, now more than thirty years of…
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I Do not listen to those who say that this shambolic Presidential campaign is reminiscent of the last time there was a Fianna Fáil implosion during such a campaign, with Brian Lenihan in 1990; in fact the last time there was a Fianna Fáil implosion during a Presidential election was with Seán Gallagher in 2011.…
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One might ask what could be less ideological than Numbers; where language is shifty and subjective, surely Numbers offer a means of achieving some measure of objectivity? Of course not. Let us take some examples. There is a lazy aspect to the language of the Rich that has surfaced particularly over the last couple of…
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Macdara has been on hiatus, but only on this first day of spring has he been able to reflect fully on the ideological reasons behind his torpor. To recap: the Party of permanent power in Unoccupied Ireland has undertaken a round of negotiations that took far longer than it should have, given that the outline…
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III The Liberal Media has not been shy about expressing its disappointment that the Far Right has had such a poor showing. The Irish Times podcast the day after the election was titled first counts trickle in and anti-immigration candidates falter. In fact the exit poll that that paper had co-commissioned had already shown that…
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I God knows there was nothing to cover in the campaign itself. Granted, An Taoiseach being caught out as a rude and cranky rightwinger was good, but who didn’t already believe that to be the case? It was an underwhelming few weeks, a dull end to a shoddy Government that had not a single accomplishment.…
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In any case, the polls showed a tie, and Trump had outperformed his polling by several percent last time around. Yet the Democrats gathered around to assure each other that Harris was in the stronger position. The elite—with a tiny number of exceptions, like Trump himself, with his grip on a kind of perverse populism—only…
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This writer can recall a Kamala shill saying in an interview a year or two ago that Harris had had many accomplishments as VP, though he declined to name a single one. Her office had a culture of bullying, that was one thing that did become public knowledge about her. As the sudden candidate, she…
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It became clear to your correspondent that the new media to which he is addicted could not correctly call the US presidential election. The descriptions of Trump exaggerated his physical frailty: on one podcast the hosts said he had faltered—almost fallen—during one of his stunts, but the video showed barely a wobble. His rally attendees…