is anyone interested in the Irish general election?

Though they prefer to portray themselves as romantic revolutionaries I'd argue the narrow reactionary nationalism at the core of their ideology is, if not directly related, certainly comparible with the Front National.

SF are a funny lot - you would think their nationalism and violent elements would send them to the far right, but their policies have a very cuddly element to them.

And whatever SF say, I'm not so sure about their core support being anyway liberal.

As it is I'll be voting for Fine Gael, you all know about my uncle etc. I'm almost tempted not to, because Nora Owen is the FG candidate in my constituency and she's a total muppet. But still, I can't not vote for Fine Gael, I'd feel too guilty.

What are the current predictions by the way?

the illiberalism of SF's supporters v. the liberalism (or leftism, whatever) of SF's official positions is an interesting dialectic.

Guilty because of your family or guilty because of your political affiliations

Guilty because my uncle (Michael N*onan DV btw, not Garret as you'd be forgiven for thinking) has some chance of being prime minister and since I like him personally I feel I should try and make it happen. In fact after considerable thought I decided FG would get my vote as long as he was in charge. Afterwards.....different story perhaps.

I have always been baffled, or tickled, by post-war Eire's UNILATERAL redefinition of itself as The Republic, as if what had been agreed with England suddenly didn't matter.

One thing ILX has never discussed: Free Statists vs Republicans, Collins vs de Valera, compromise vs absolutism etc etc. I guess this is because its few Irish members would be more bored by such a discussion than its English ones.

Democratic Left merged with Labour a few years back.

The Eire thing... people here get really annoyed about it, I'm not entirely sure why. Our constitution begins "The name of the state is Eire, or in the English language Ireland". So there you go.

I think the Brits use Eire to differentiate free Ireland from the occupied six counties.

And there is no southern equivalent to the SDLP. SF are the only all- ireland party (apart from fringe groups like the Socialist Party, the Workers Party, and the Socialist Workers Party).

I am thinking of emigrating.

I bet the soldiers of destiny will now fuck the country up so badly that my life will be blighted for the next fifteen years. It's 1977 all over again.

What's up with Fine Gael? How did they become HALF as popular as FF? I don't get it.

They lost 23 seats I think, despite their vote only dropping by 5 percent. So the problem is obviously that they got no transfers really. Labour did badly too and I bet they now regret not entering into a transfers deal with FG. Fact is, they were trying to be smart fuckers and hoped to get in with whoever did better out of FF or FG. They'll be kicking themselves now after winning one seat.

Looks like the PDs might be back in government with FF, what a nightmare.

"No!" he would say, "They are NOT soldiers!".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/02/ireland

sadly I don't think we have a Le Pen figure waiting in the wings to pique everyone's interest - unless I take this as my cue to enter politics!

o_O

you'd vote for le pen, you closet righty you

What does o_O mean? is it like you are a cyclops with your mouth wide open?

There's never a "What's That?" thread around when you need one.