So that was interesting
Posted by Maman Poulet on 08 Jun 2009 at 01:51 am | Tagged as: Blogging, Declan Ganley, Elections, Irish Politics, Live Blogging, Uncategorized
Understatement!
I’ll let other people talk about the liveblog and the results. The weekend was stunning on a personal note and it was brilliant to work with Cian, Alexia, Mark, and Damien over Saturday and Sunday in bringing it all to life and have inputs from so many others around the country. Thanks again to D4 hotels for the room for the blogger HQ and like many of the readers and commenters on the live blog it seems people are saying roll on the General Election and online media bringing news to people who are interested and those who claim not to be intersted but really are!
I’m very tired but have had a few thoughts simmering – excuse the babble!
- Yes there was a huge wave of anger against this government and people took it out on them and the Greens in particular. I’m going to mention one factor – the removal of the Xmas bonus – don’t mess with the older people! Time and again this election I’ve heard it said in anger – it’s bigger than the mess with the banks as a reason people voted.
- Dublin Councils are going to be great fun to watch for the next 4 years – All shades of the ‘left’ in the majority? – Labour polled extremely well in Dublin City and elsewhere and with SF, People Before Profit (Yes I know I’m not alone in thinking the Swimmies change name and get 5 seats in Dublin!) various Independents and the Socialist party polling well on Joe’s wings it’s going to be messy. FF only have 18 seats or so out of 130 seats in the 4 Dublin councils. Berties Dubs have deserted the party. And Mannix Flynn will be very interesting to watch – I would like one of his posters I believe he’ll be tweeting where to meet him to get one when he takes them down on Tuesday.
- Lots of women were elected and I look forward to seeing the stats on the candidates and how many got elected. Now can we see if there would be more transparency in politics as a result? And will the many forthcoming selection conventions for Dail tickets see an end to women candidates who have done the work being pushed aside for parachute candidates. Many many other questions there…
- Frank McBrearty Jnr got elected! (Despite vandalism of posters and rows in street with Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher and also Labour not having any organsiation of note in Donegal)
- Maureen O’Sullivan TD – nobody saw that coming – but nobody in media would admit they didn’t see it coming either yesterday when they were so lovely about her! Well done to the Gregory Group!
- And yes there is a bit of me sad for Paschal Donohue who became a bit of a personal favourite for his tweeting and his personal blog and media coverage and the rotweiller emerging from a puppy. He worked extremely hard and survived being knocked down by a car and having Enda in his ear constantly.
- Simon Harris – you will remember him – 4 quotas for Greystones Town Council? And elected to Wicklow County Council also on over 1.5 quotas! Surely the mascot must have been thanked in his speech?
- The look of bewilderment on Green Party faces – is it political naiveity? To quote a person I heard at a Labour party coalition conference 17 years ago if ‘you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas’. And I know it’s really sad to lose one’s seat and 14 councillors lost their seats – someone texted me yesterday and said ‘maybe a lot of those green jobs announced in the last month still need filling…’ ouch. From watching their party conference earlier this year I know there is a lot of soul searching going on – well the search needs to end and the party needs to cop on and call their partners on more than a few things and stop ignoring them like they don’t exist. It’s not like FF want to run to the polls anytime soon is it?
- Lisa Connell got 229 first preferences in the Dublin South West Inner City Constituency.
- RTE had a terrible election results weekend – sport took precedence over radio coverage which is usually the must listen to at election time. I don’t want to hear it was only the locals/euros – this was the most important mid term election in decades and they went missing on Saturday Afternoon and evening and until 9pm last night. The money must be really running out in RTE ? Or were they worried about offending someone?
- Newstalk played a blinder with their RDS stage and webcam. Local radio was a joy to tune into – Highland radio, Shannonside, Radio Kerry amongst the ones I and others listened to. Some local papers were on the ball too with publication of counts online and also twittering from counts – The Mayo News, Westmeath Examiner and Tallaght Echo stand up and take a bow!
- Will George Lee TD continue his town hall meetings? When will we know more about George’s thoughts on things other than the economy?
- Next time the Irish Times do a Campaign Watch blog, well I hope they think before they write – it was really below par for the Irish Times who are the leading media outlet for blogging and the paper of record. It was as bad as the Phoenix on a slow week and sometimes worse than reading the Star on Sunday at times.
And finally for all those wheelie bins out there – time to fight back against those who are looking for you and claim you went missing!
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RE: Maureen O’Sullivan, ‘nobody saw it coming’… actually, the Sunday Tribune’s political editor Shane Coleman predicted her win in our May 31st edition
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2009/may/31/and-the-winners-are/?q=
You’re making me wanna rant…
I’d say the anger has multiple roots, although you focus on one dimension. A key issue is the doubling of unemployment to 400K and more to come(!). There is the pauperisation of people who’ve lost their (mac)jobs on which they barely existed; they have experienced waiting up to 12 weeks for the dole payments to arrive, living on cornflakes, bread and milk,queueing for food handouts, begging for medical cards etc. And it is also the manner in which/ who has been let go from work: those people who’ve been let go (or who will be going) have often seen well-paid permanent staff unaffected by cutbacks. Indeed where I am until this Thur,the permanent staff are “untouched” and spend their days surfing the net, playing online scrabble while the minions work, it’s like fiddling while Rome burns. While I’m not of the view that no money should have been given to banks, the continued payments of billions to the lying banks contrasts to people’s daily experiences of being denied decent resources for their families, kids, elderly, etc. while those who nearly bankrupted us are rewarded… ok, I’m done now! FF is finished for the next decade IMO. Greens were always irrelevant as they’re never spouted environmentalist/ ecological politics in the spirit of the European style, and what they’ve implemented runs counter to an intelligent green agenda.
[...] the radio all the breaking news I got has come via the web. Using Twitter and following people like Suzy and Alexia, lurking around and occasionally joining in with the liveblog and the RSS feed of the [...]
Man, I thought I already commented here, but I had a crash. Anyway, I just wanted to say well done for a profoundly democratic weekend’s work, my Queen.
how many stations has rte got, and the couldn’t keep up coverage????
Glad to hear all went well, it was hard to tell how it was going from inside the glass bubble of the count centre in Kildare.
What’s this about a row between Frank Jnr and the Cope?
Nick – Thanks but I’m a small bit of a republican so lets crown someone else – Actually we’ll have the Irishelection.com Post election awards. What could we give Ganley?
Steve – No Medium Wave service any more and no use of digital or online services for sport or even election coverage – really poor.
Gerard, row on street in Raphoe – reported in Donegal News a while back – I don’t think I still have the paper but I’ll have a look.
As an outsider although with a certain interest in politics (http://www.ceolas.net) I was wondering how to find election information
– so I want to thank you very much for your scribblelive commenting, much more up to date than rte or other sites were offering
The liveblog and posts on Irishelection were really brilliant! Loved the way you got the info out and also had those pictures and videos! Alexia in the RDS whilst RTE was off air for 7 hours on Sunday was excellent. I never knew that video phone thing worked in Ireland.
Anyway thanks for bringing the election to life and being in such good humour – roll on the general election so we can watch it all again!
Big thanks to you folks who provided a slickly run service over the last few days.
much appreacited
Maureen O’Sullivan really does represent the ordinary wo/man and those at the bottom of this class ridden, corrupt ‘republic’. One to watch as is her ‘team’. Their style of politics should be mainstreamed, replicated and given a higher profile. Cynism is now part of each generation and is so dangerous.Can I sign up and be part of your links. Don’t know how this all works but i’ll be asking me nephews when next up in Dublin.
@SeanR: “FF is finished for the next decade IMO.”
If that turns out to be the case, it will be the second of two markers of the end of FF’s dominance.
A friend of mine pointed out while we were having our last beer a week or so before he went canvasing (he topped the poll and was elected on the first count
) that two specific things distinguish FF from other parties in Ireland: they have at least one seat in each constituency, and they have been out of power for only one consecutive term.
There were 17 electoral areas where they had zero seats at the level of city and county councils* (and most prominently, one at the European level). It is, I suppose, an open question whether that will be repeated at the next general election, but given the extent of the local authority picture, especially in Dublin city, quite probable.
And if your prediction comes true, the end of FF as the “natural” party of government will truly have come to an end.
_____
*Fingal County Council: Balbriggan; South Dublin County Council: Lucan; Dublin City Council: Ballyfermot-Drimnagh, Crumlin-Kimmage, North Inner City, South-East Inner City, South-West Inner City; Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council: Ballybrack, Blackrock; Wicklow:
Baltinglass, Greystones; Limerick City: Limerick City North, Limerick City South; Cork county: Midleton; Carlow: Borris; Waterford City: Waterford City North, Waterford City South.
[...] political bloggers had great fun last weekend doing live blogs of the results as they came in. Maman Poulet gives a nice review of the weekend and her [...]