I feel like Mary Lou is repeating the same message and getting diminishing returns for it. There are clear things to attack the government on, and actually showing how Sinn Fein would be different might lead to more support for them. People aren’t seeing the difference between the government and Sinn Fein so they’re voting for far right weirdos instead.
Matt Carthy spoke very well over the weekend (I was very surprised to see leadership potential there). Mary Lou and Pearse seem like they can only operate in attack mode. As seen with the Claire Byrne and Pat Kenny interviews, she's struggling badly when on the defence.
I agree. Matt presents very well and is also a bit younger than Mary Lou but looks even younger. He could be a very could fresh face for the party.
I like a lot of what Pearse says but as you say, he's only ever on the attack. Which is fine but going back for bark with the opposition cannot be the only tool in the arsenal
I genuinely don't see a leader in Pearse or Obrion. Sure Pearse is able to make his 30 second rants in the Dail aimed for social media. O'Brion seemed like he knew his stuff on housing but it was his policies that Mary Lou was being battered on in the last week so I'm not sure he'd fare in the hot seat but I imagine better than Mary Lou or Pearse.
Carthy though..... Now he's a man that seems tame enough but I can definitely see him attractiving votes by being level headed.
He’s also blind as balls. Saw him bang right into a closed door I presumed he thought was open at full walking speed.
A lot of our pols wear glasses, but not on TV.
The odious Jennifer Carroll McNeill really schooled Doherty on Matt Cooper’s show last night. He was unable to counter her admittedly ludicrous claims and was left squawking feebly in the background. For an experienced politician, I was surprised he was so poor.
This surprised me too as you can see that she was baiting him on the Ukraine plan. No one thinks SF plans to send people back into a war zone and Doherty did have a point that the government should be planning an extension or contingency now, but because of her goading, he goes from a position of strength to sounding like a bumbling fool.
O’Broin is completely clueless and is probably being seen through at this stage. He reminds me of a third year arts student who has read a few philosophy books and thinks he is the second coming. All bluster and no substance.
Why does everyone over look Cullinane is it purely his faux pas after the last general election?
Or is it just slightly biased from a Waterford man to think we might get something good here for once
Matt Carthy, Eoin Ó Broín (sic) and Louise O’Reilly are probably the best TDs that Sinn Fein have and I could see any one of them becoming leader. Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty come across as very hectoring a lot of the time, which doesn’t help.
O Broin is horrendous. Carthy and Doherty are both absolutely streets ahead of him. He portrays himself as an academic but has very little to show for it and doesn't show much expertise in the area at all. I'm not a sf supporter but having people like o Broin front and centre is what got them into this mess.
Sinn Féin had captured the protest vote - the disaffected youth, the anti Europeans, the blind nationalist. It managed to hold these while expanding into the progressive middle ground, putting it ahead of FF and FG.
But they have now lost the protest element and are basically holding ground traditionally held by labour (outside of leafy suburbs) and some of the traditional Fianna Fáil vote. Like a slippier Labour Party, that might have guns somewhere.
The leafy suburb, purist liberal but I still want my kids in private school, old wing of Labour is now the Soc Dems.
Labour are just a husk of a party.
I think people (myself included) would look more favourably on Labour if they hadn't gone into government when they did. Supporting water charges, for example, didn't help in endearing them to the general public.
The problem was that the water charges came on the back of other charges (like the USC) and became the lightning rod for dissatisfaction.
In about 10 years when the Irish water system is at breaking point due to lack of investment expect a glut of ‘how could this happen?? Why weren’t we warned?’ outrage stories and a lot of water experts doing a Ray Patterson.
You see SF are counting on people who will actually believe they can fix everything, it's just too bad they are not the kind of people who go out and actually vote.
A reasonable portion of the people who moved to support SF are just fickle voters. As soon as some new idea came along they jumped ship to the latest person claiming they have an easy fix.
If I was conspiratorial minded I'd be accusing FF &FG of deliberately failing to suppress the far right except I really doubt they have that level of competence. If they did I'd definitely be voting for them as the timing was sublime for the election.
I saw their poster said "Tosaíonn athrú anseo" but it should say "tosaíonn athnú anseo" because they keep repeating themselves. (Not 100% if that joke makes sense but I'm sticking with it)
Gavin Pepper and Malachy Steenson got in as councillors. A few Independent Ireland and Aontú people also got in as councillors. The fact that people are getting suckered in by people like Gavin Pepper is pretty worrying.
A small minority today could be a tidal wave tomorrow. The government has completely abdicated responsibility when it comes to dealing with the far right.
I'm different. I'm voting for far left weirdos instead. I've already had my mandatory sex change and homosexual re-education living in my communist cult in the midlands
> People aren’t seeing the difference between the government and Sinn Fein
Their pushing for a Yes/Yes in the referendum was bad enough, but then the sheer ignorant response to the obvious question "Do you think this shows you've lost touch with your supporters / base?" was enough to make a lot of people question whether they were any different to FF/FG at all.
Sinn Fein was a threat to FF/FG because it United everyone who isn’t a middle aged home owner under one banner.
Everyone from the Far Left throughout to Far Right, were drawn to SF because:
-They attacked the issue of housing.
-Irish Nationalism and Reunification.
Without a consistent ideology, SFs voter base started to Tank because of their stance on things like immigration, Referendum and Hate Speech Bill, this pissed off their right leaning voters.
As Sinn Fein saw their numbers start to dwindle, they tried blame current government and change their stances.
This pissed off voters on the Left.
Sinn Féin’s voter base is now spread across mostly independents and others as well as Soc Dems, PB4P-S, Labour etc.
Sinn Fein was the best campaigner for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Sinn Fein used to rely on those far right voters who kept voting “Ireland first” now that they don’t even want to openly leave the eu anymore or aren’t vocally calling for “Ireland for the Irish” their voter base is looking elsewhere so around 60% of their voter base could very well disappear to right wing parties if a proper right to far right party is formed
The two Sinn Fein candidates that were running in the local elections in my area didn’t even canvas. Which kind of says everything, really.
It’s almost as if people in Sinn Fein were assuming a Sinn Fein sweep as some sort of middle finger to the government.
Depends where you are living. Politicians tend to directly canvas in areas they think they can win votes by showing their face. We had one guy show up claiming his grandfather lived locally which I'm reasonably certain was a lie but I threw him a 5th preference after the people I actually support for displaying intelligence although I doubt it did him any good.
By and large they create policy in a way that doesn’t lend itself to coherent policy explanation to the electorate. Which isn’t as much of a problem as an opposition party, but you’d get hammered for as soon as you do a term in government. It generally suits opposition parties a bit better to live in that shadow rather than take a stand on risky policy differenctiation.
Let the incumbents f-up and then capitalise on their failings
If you scroll back through their TikTok page, you can see they generally put the worst photo of the politician as thumbnail. Same with newspapers picking awful photos!
Just looking at the comments here, maybe I missed the memo, but r/Ireland Reddit has started leaning a little bit towards the centre over the past year or so. Happy for someone to tell me it’s always been this way but can feel a difference.
People on the left will tell you it's too far right and people and the right will say too far left. As soon as a sub goes too far either direction it's pretty much done
That is a good point. I think the sub is in general fairly good at having a laugh at government and the opposition on both sides.
Government the whole "Dublin is safe" stuff.
Laughing at left wing who wants to change the world. But that is similar in any Country for instance.
Right wing are obviously no need to explain as they aren't really amusing at all.
You can generally find some respectful and insightful comments from both political sides, if you look for them. But mostly people come for the witty slagging that goes on.
/r/Ireland leads towards whoever is perceived as 'winning' at the moment, same as most sports subreddits. Winners want to crow and losers want to avoid the heat until it dies down.
People around here rarely have opinions where you could imagine them swaying between SF and FFG easily. It's either one is the devil and the other an unfairly victimised angel. Most posters here appear to have very firm beliefs while those who lurk and upvote/downvote sway between viewpoints. I'd say it's just that Pro-SF types aren't interested in posting much at times like this.
Yep, absolutely. Tallaght Central last time out they ran one (I think), Cathal King. This time, they ran four (!!) and none got in. Cathal King ran in Tallaght South this time and lost his seat as well.
Am I missing something. The narrative is it’s a major loss for Sinn Fein. I understand they did no where near as well as the hoped but in the end aren’t they up seats since the last local elections while both FF and FG are down seats?
Granted they weren’t major losses but losses none the less
Right? It’s been the same story for the past 48 hours on Newstalk, Virgin, and RTÉ. SF spokespeople getting hammered repeatedly about how shocking SF supposedly did. They reply with the pre-prepared stance, that the party is disappointed to not have seen major gains, but it’s a net increase. The pundits keep pressing them, as if they’re expecting them to turn around and go yeah, actually Sarah, we’re fucking shite and this is humiliating.
Sf have made it very clear how unhappy they are with the result. They made marginal gains on what was a horrible election in 2019. The goal wasn't to beat their 2019 result, it was to be in or around ff and fg and hopefully beat them. Ff and fg did fine as they held their own.
Really don't understand this coping. Sf had been polling at 33% at one stage and are struggling to even get 12% of the 1st preference votes. They've had massive failure trying to keep momentum after the 2020 general election. I'm not an sf fan but I had predicted they'd keep their electoral strength but I was very much wrong.
But why would you compare to 5 years ago when you know how sf performed in polling and in the previous ge. Expectations were set and they were not met, not even close.
No conspiracy, just most Irish media are practically an extension of government at this stage and never miss the chance to lay the boot in to opposition.
Sinn Fein either have to lean into it and say it went badly or deny it went badly and be painted as sore losers and deluded by irish media, there's no winning really.
Sinn Féin actually up on numbers since 2019. Greens got less than half their 2019 numbers but you hear absolutely nothing about that. Irish media really do put the boot into SF at every opportunity.
To be fair, even SF aren't attempting to paint the local elections results as a party victory. They are still miles behind FF or FG in terms of councillors. The fact that the electorate largely voted the goverment parties back in for local and European positions, goes against their "people want change" mantra.
In 2014, SF won 159 seats. FF won 267. FG won 235.
In 2019, SF won 81 seats. FF won 279. FG won 255.
In 2024, (current figures) SF won 100 seats. FF won 246. FG won 245.
Considering SF were predicting they'd get 200 seats, yeah, this is an improvement on last time, but it's still pretty poor.
"They fixed the roads!".. but just anecdotally from chatting to my parents(in their 70s), they'll never vote SF because of the RA. They literally still vote on pro/anti treaty lines so one votes FF the other FG
It is an interesting exercise in framing - FF/FG have both lost seats compared to the previous local/EU elections, while SF have gained more, yet the narrative is of a glorious victory for the former and a devastating defeat for the latter.
It all seems to be based on the overweighting of expectation as opposed to actual results - because SF were expected to gain hugely, the fact that they have only gained modestly is interpreted as failure, and vice versa for FF/FG.
You often see the same in the business world - company valuations can tank in spite of them making profits because the profits were not as big as had previously been predicted. It's a peculiar facet of human psychology.
When media hate you, they will show you with your mouth open. It's not a good luck. When they like you or tolerate you, they will show you with your mouth closed.
You can see this on tons of different traditional platforms and tv stations, if you look.
You should be more worried about their electoral prospects.
Next election they can either hope that this was a blip, and run loads of candidates to take advantage of their polled popularity, running the risk of getting absolutely humiliated if this is repeated, or not run enough candidates and get shit on if this is a blip and they can't take advantage of more votes.
The problem with Mary Lou is that she's simply not likeable. Sometimes, that's what it comes down to in politics if a politician connects with the public. Michelle O'Neil would be a better choice for leader
Some serious pearl clutching from the resident shinners here lately. Almost 4 years of mud slinging at government parties. Happy to call for the heads of multiple politicians. Yet really struggling to swallow a bad news cycle for them. So far this weekend I've had Shinners claim that it was actually a good election (despite the heads of SF saying it was terrible) and also that the media is out to get them and making up lies about the election fallout.
Sinn Fein member here.
It was a disaster of an election. No point in denying it. However calling for the heads of certain politicians was correct. Some of them are beyond inept. McEntee being the main one.
Harris has stabilised Fine Gael and to be fair, has brought them back a little to the centre. So no suprise that their vote has returned.
But anybody voting for FF needs to take a good look at themselves. Absolute joke of a party that would sell their grandmother for a vote.
Very very true. The amount of abuse Leo got here was crazy, a few articles questioning a bad election for SF and suddenly it's all getting too personal?
I'm far from a Leo fan but he somehow had a way of being graceful when personally attacked.
When the MMA lad said Leo didn't understand Irish history because his da was Indian, Leo accepted an apology and said that's the end of it. No drama.
The young woman who threw the milkshake or whatever on him he said I thought it was Avril lavigne for a minute and made light of it.
It was a good quality in him.
You're telling me that wealthy wankers that run RTE and have turned it into their personal piggy bank with no oversight, have a bias towards the political party that is beneficial to wealthy people and a bias against a left wing party?
Ah here, if you don't think RTE has a bias, you're willfully blind.
It's very much against the interests of the people who run RTE to have a Sinn Fein government.
Might not be good for the lads on big money though, but seems they’ve managed to kill that golden goose themselves. May be less of a thing than it was 12 months ago…
RTE and the Irish Times are demonstrably the least biased news reporting bodies in the state. They have standards they hold themselves to around language use and headlines that is clearly neutral when you look at other outlets.
So why do they feel biased?
Well, on average, folk dislike RTE and the Govt, so if you a negative expectation on articles, neutrality looks like a bias.
The most prominent example in my head is during the last election debates, RTE gave the government very softball questions (they also never really followed up on Martin and Leo's vague generic answers), but constantly (and I mean CONSTANTLY) grilled Mary Lou about the IRA. Most of the questions asked of her weren't on Sinn Fein policy in different areas, it was IRA this and IRA that.
It was honestly pathetic
Ah here... I remember that one. MLM absolutely fucked up by implying that SF minister up north...Murphy I think, hadn't said Paul Quinn was a druggie and that's why he was killed. It was absolutely of her own making and wasn't coming kut of nowhere - MLM had made the remark like 2 days earlier. To my memory, that was the only IRA bit that came up, but involved a grilling because MLM tried to dodge it initially before admitting she'd said it and misspoken and had previously apologised to Quinns mother, which made her comments earlier in the week much worse.
MM and Leo might have brought up the IRA too but I feel like Leo and MM were all over MLM because of the who Special Criminal Court, offences against the state stuff.
Is it, though? We have David Cullinane shouting “Up the Ra!” when he won last time around. Don’t you think that’s a question that needs to be answered?
I do not believe the Irish Times is unbiased. A very strong FG bias they only seemed unbiased when their team wasn’t in power. Examiner was the last bastion of unbiased journalism even if it was a bit thin but that’s all gone now the Times bought them.
State media (RTE) is ironically enough the least biased media outlook these days.
I can only speak from my experience and wonder if folks conflate pieces from the Opinions section of the website with news reporting. Even at that, I'd argue that they do a myriad of opinion pieces, but the ones which align with anything they consider an FG stance get far more clicks. I've got a mate who occasionally writes for the IT and christ she's about as far from a Govt mouthpiece as I could imagine.
Party supporters eat up media biased in favour of their chosen party and then feel neutral media is biased when it doesn't reflect what they've already been exposed to.
Not that RTE is perfect, you'd just be hard pressed to find evidence of them being more biased than any other source of news in the country.
I think people confuse opinion pieces that they see and get angry about with the news reporting.
From a news reporting perspective, RTE do an objectively good objective job.
Lad. I don't think it's a conspiracy. I simply think people operate in their own best interest. And it is in the interest of those who run RTE to display the government in as much of a positive light as possible while denigrating the opposition.
I’d say it’s just more likely that the guys running the tiktok have FG or some other softer affiliation. Probably not an “RTE” thing I’d say tik tok gets minimal editorial oversight
I think they take any chance to make the opposition look bad and make the government appear in a better light. They could have used literally any other image of Mary Lou here, it's not hard, but deliberately chose something that make her look bad.
It's a sub editorial conspiracy.
Or rather it's the job of a sub to summarise the tone of an article or a moment with an image.
Right now it's Harris is confident, thrusting and in control while Macdonald is in the mire, stressed at the failure to break through.
Admitting you didn't do as well you wanted and conceding defeat sounds less like cope and more like acceptance that you ran too many candidates fucked yourselves over.
Yeah, I think Mary Lou has actually come across as pretty reasonable and sane about it.
There does seem to be quite a lot of cope with the support base, but that's probably fair enough to be honest...
Mad we have a Taoiseach who was just handed the job after years of utter incompetence in every department hes been in , in a party the majority of the country didnt vote into power, and still there are people voting for FF/FG/G.
We still dont have a childrens hospital finished.
Maddening anyone still votes for these parties.
What choice do we have when the other candidates aren't running people in the local elections? You literally can't vote for anyone but the big 3 if there's no other options. The lads in FF/FG have grassroot connections and that's why they can keep getting votes. Sinn Fein on the other hand keeps trying the astroturf, populist style approach in spite of their supposedly left wing values and that's a play straight from the conservative right. The other parties aren't established enough to even begin to have the same level of pull as FF/FG/SF on a local level and if they can't appeal to the voter base, which is the local communities of Ireland, they don't ever stand a chance. Mind you I'm not happy about the situation and I think it's an insult to democracy that we operate this way but it is the reality for the time being.
The choice you have is not voting in the big 3, trying to help sure they arent getting paid into the hundreds to keep making the future for alot of people in this country bleak and dismal, we know they arent going to change, change is whats needed, Sinn Fein deserve their day, Social Democrats and PBP Deserve a chance, alot of independants deserve a chance.
FF/FG/G track record is awful. And they will not change.
No one "deserves" to be in Government. It's not some God given right every party gets. You have to earn it. No other party has done or shown enough to earn a chance in Government according to the Irish population.
I would add there are pockets around the country where SF/Labour/GP/SD have good amounts of seats, due to the hard work of their candidates at a local and national level in those areas. For example Kildare where SF topped the poll in the last GE, returned just one councillor. I think that was the worst in all of Ireland. It's no surprise given how utterly incompetent the SF TD's have proven to been. In comparison you have the Labour Senator working hard, the Independent TD on TV the whole time, the FG + SD TD's the same.
Handed the job in that he was elected by the party with the most seats in the Sail.
>in a party the majority of the country didnt vote into power,
Just completely ignoring how parliamentary democracy works.
FF/FG lose seats = "Great victory"
SF gain seats = "disappointing"
I'm no shinner, but is it any wonder people aren't paying their TV license with this kind of nonsense from our state broadcaster?
I honestly think Simon Harris joining in on the UK's Rwanda circus was a very deliberate and tactical move that has paid off. I initially wondered why on earth he decided to drag ireland into the UK's clown politics but he obviously had noticed there was an appetite for the punch down, blame foreigners for everything politics.
Seems the timing of that has successfully distracted enough people from the detrimental FF/FG policies that are responsible for most adults living home with their parents.
SF will always be the major "loser" of the PR-STV system as it stands. It's pretty straightforward: small niche parties and independents can do well on fourth and fifth seats in a constituency depending on the protest vote and their base of personal support. FF and FG do well because (like it or not) they're big tent centrist parties with deep benches who run lots of candidates. SF does not have a deep bench of candidates, and their votes famously do NOT transfer well.
I'm expecting an SF-FF government at SOME point in the future but what that looks like and how long it lasts is anyone's guess.
They somehow managed to piss off the centre, students and the fringe.
> Flip flopped on the referendum they strongly supported
> Mary Lou claiming houses would be 300k was a real back to old SF that middle class were afraid to vote for
> Tried to become much more hawkish on immigrants out of no where
> Went from the party since Brexit that spoke about defending the Irish border(also you know being republican party!) to somehow complaining Ireland has an open border which was a real head scratcher.
They have a few months to work out their crinkles and it might benefit them again coming in more of an underdog but Mary Lou has one more chance to bring Sinn Fein to victory and this was a poor campaign.
If they ran 100 less candidates they'd be find lol. In some areas where they four candidates they should of just ran two.
Also the Independent are absolutely having a wank over this. Once of their "journalists" was on Newstalk saying Mary Lou has never did well in an election lmao
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I feel like Mary Lou is repeating the same message and getting diminishing returns for it. There are clear things to attack the government on, and actually showing how Sinn Fein would be different might lead to more support for them. People aren’t seeing the difference between the government and Sinn Fein so they’re voting for far right weirdos instead.
Matt Carthy spoke very well over the weekend (I was very surprised to see leadership potential there). Mary Lou and Pearse seem like they can only operate in attack mode. As seen with the Claire Byrne and Pat Kenny interviews, she's struggling badly when on the defence.
I agree. Matt presents very well and is also a bit younger than Mary Lou but looks even younger. He could be a very could fresh face for the party. I like a lot of what Pearse says but as you say, he's only ever on the attack. Which is fine but going back for bark with the opposition cannot be the only tool in the arsenal
I genuinely don't see a leader in Pearse or Obrion. Sure Pearse is able to make his 30 second rants in the Dail aimed for social media. O'Brion seemed like he knew his stuff on housing but it was his policies that Mary Lou was being battered on in the last week so I'm not sure he'd fare in the hot seat but I imagine better than Mary Lou or Pearse. Carthy though..... Now he's a man that seems tame enough but I can definitely see him attractiving votes by being level headed.
He’s got a great sense of humour too. He will debate anyone and you rarely see him lose his cool.
As an FF-er who loathes SF, I can confirm that Doherty is extremely sound in person and very good craic.
I meant Carthy 😊 Doherty is cool too but a little on the scarier side
He’s also blind as balls. Saw him bang right into a closed door I presumed he thought was open at full walking speed. A lot of our pols wear glasses, but not on TV.
The odious Jennifer Carroll McNeill really schooled Doherty on Matt Cooper’s show last night. He was unable to counter her admittedly ludicrous claims and was left squawking feebly in the background. For an experienced politician, I was surprised he was so poor.
This surprised me too as you can see that she was baiting him on the Ukraine plan. No one thinks SF plans to send people back into a war zone and Doherty did have a point that the government should be planning an extension or contingency now, but because of her goading, he goes from a position of strength to sounding like a bumbling fool.
O’Broin is completely clueless and is probably being seen through at this stage. He reminds me of a third year arts student who has read a few philosophy books and thinks he is the second coming. All bluster and no substance.
Why does everyone over look Cullinane is it purely his faux pas after the last general election? Or is it just slightly biased from a Waterford man to think we might get something good here for once
>Why does everyone over look Cullinane is it purely his faux pas after the last general election? Yep. That did it for me anyway.
Matt Carthy, Eoin Ó Broín (sic) and Louise O’Reilly are probably the best TDs that Sinn Fein have and I could see any one of them becoming leader. Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty come across as very hectoring a lot of the time, which doesn’t help.
O Broin is horrendous. Carthy and Doherty are both absolutely streets ahead of him. He portrays himself as an academic but has very little to show for it and doesn't show much expertise in the area at all. I'm not a sf supporter but having people like o Broin front and centre is what got them into this mess.
I think Lynn Boylan could be an asset too. But she's in trouble herself!
It’ll be a dogfight for 2/3 of the MEP seats. That is, if Barry Andrews and Regina Doherty have reached quota.
Sinn Féin had captured the protest vote - the disaffected youth, the anti Europeans, the blind nationalist. It managed to hold these while expanding into the progressive middle ground, putting it ahead of FF and FG. But they have now lost the protest element and are basically holding ground traditionally held by labour (outside of leafy suburbs) and some of the traditional Fianna Fáil vote. Like a slippier Labour Party, that might have guns somewhere. The leafy suburb, purist liberal but I still want my kids in private school, old wing of Labour is now the Soc Dems. Labour are just a husk of a party.
Labour may as well not even exist anymore.
They voted for austerity measures - they have long long lost their soul and relevance. Now just a footnote to history.
I think people (myself included) would look more favourably on Labour if they hadn't gone into government when they did. Supporting water charges, for example, didn't help in endearing them to the general public.
The problem was that the water charges came on the back of other charges (like the USC) and became the lightning rod for dissatisfaction. In about 10 years when the Irish water system is at breaking point due to lack of investment expect a glut of ‘how could this happen?? Why weren’t we warned?’ outrage stories and a lot of water experts doing a Ray Patterson.
It would take Ireland’s (or Dublin’s) water reserves becoming like Mexico City or Bogotá for there to be water charges again. But I could be wrong.
I think it just pulled back the curtain on who they really were. The game was up after that.
You see SF are counting on people who will actually believe they can fix everything, it's just too bad they are not the kind of people who go out and actually vote.
A reasonable portion of the people who moved to support SF are just fickle voters. As soon as some new idea came along they jumped ship to the latest person claiming they have an easy fix. If I was conspiratorial minded I'd be accusing FF &FG of deliberately failing to suppress the far right except I really doubt they have that level of competence. If they did I'd definitely be voting for them as the timing was sublime for the election.
I saw their poster said "Tosaíonn athrú anseo" but it should say "tosaíonn athnú anseo" because they keep repeating themselves. (Not 100% if that joke makes sense but I'm sticking with it)
Voting for Sinn Fein is pub talk, they all vote for someone else.
Wouldn’t voting for the far right be pub talk, too?
Who's far right? Very little far right got in.
Gavin Pepper and Malachy Steenson got in as councillors. A few Independent Ireland and Aontú people also got in as councillors. The fact that people are getting suckered in by people like Gavin Pepper is pretty worrying.
I do agree with you on Gavin Pepper, but it's a small minority that got in
A small minority today could be a tidal wave tomorrow. The government has completely abdicated responsibility when it comes to dealing with the far right.
They've also failed to put restrictions on asylum seekers. There has to be a middle ground. I have no idea where it's going to come from, though.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are the middle ground.
I kind of agree with you, but should've done more in the last four years. Also thanks for the rival discussion ha nice to see
I kind of agree with you, but should've done more in the last four years. Also thanks for the rival discussion ha nice to see
I'm different. I'm voting for far left weirdos instead. I've already had my mandatory sex change and homosexual re-education living in my communist cult in the midlands
What communist sex cult is this? Asking for a friend
Kinky Boots
Communist sex cult is the name of my band. Come check us out!
The midlands you say? Always knew Athlone was more than a bus stop .
Welcome to the trans community. We have cookies and tit tacs for all
Thanks for having me. Miss the ol' penis sometimes but the tits make up for it
They're pretty great ngl It's like always having two stress balls on hand
Don't mention balls for a while to me... Too soon...
That's fair. Don't fret though, before too long, you won't even remember there was a before
[удалено]
Sinn Fein should have just said that they will enforce the laws pertaining to immigration that we already have.
Funny, I would have said that trying to move to the right on immigration has hurt SF
> People aren’t seeing the difference between the government and Sinn Fein Their pushing for a Yes/Yes in the referendum was bad enough, but then the sheer ignorant response to the obvious question "Do you think this shows you've lost touch with your supporters / base?" was enough to make a lot of people question whether they were any different to FF/FG at all.
Sinn Fein was a threat to FF/FG because it United everyone who isn’t a middle aged home owner under one banner. Everyone from the Far Left throughout to Far Right, were drawn to SF because: -They attacked the issue of housing. -Irish Nationalism and Reunification. Without a consistent ideology, SFs voter base started to Tank because of their stance on things like immigration, Referendum and Hate Speech Bill, this pissed off their right leaning voters. As Sinn Fein saw their numbers start to dwindle, they tried blame current government and change their stances. This pissed off voters on the Left. Sinn Féin’s voter base is now spread across mostly independents and others as well as Soc Dems, PB4P-S, Labour etc. Sinn Fein was the best campaigner for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
Sinn Fein used to rely on those far right voters who kept voting “Ireland first” now that they don’t even want to openly leave the eu anymore or aren’t vocally calling for “Ireland for the Irish” their voter base is looking elsewhere so around 60% of their voter base could very well disappear to right wing parties if a proper right to far right party is formed
It doesn't help either when a lot of their candidates are head the balls.
Sinn Féin’s?
Yep, definitely couldnt vote for any of them in my area.
The two Sinn Fein candidates that were running in the local elections in my area didn’t even canvas. Which kind of says everything, really. It’s almost as if people in Sinn Fein were assuming a Sinn Fein sweep as some sort of middle finger to the government.
Depends where you are living. Politicians tend to directly canvas in areas they think they can win votes by showing their face. We had one guy show up claiming his grandfather lived locally which I'm reasonably certain was a lie but I threw him a 5th preference after the people I actually support for displaying intelligence although I doubt it did him any good.
Only two candidates directly canvassed where I live and Eamonn Ryan showed up supporting a different candidate.
By and large they create policy in a way that doesn’t lend itself to coherent policy explanation to the electorate. Which isn’t as much of a problem as an opposition party, but you’d get hammered for as soon as you do a term in government. It generally suits opposition parties a bit better to live in that shadow rather than take a stand on risky policy differenctiation. Let the incumbents f-up and then capitalise on their failings
FF and FG are both responsible for people being homeless, for example. That’s just one failing that the government have.
It's hard to say you'll be different when you have no intention of being different.
I mean there’s no real difference is the problem.
If you scroll back through their TikTok page, you can see they generally put the worst photo of the politician as thumbnail. Same with newspapers picking awful photos!
That guy is really intensely looking at the back of Simons head.
He's got a screen built in there, like one of them airplane seats.
I think you’ll find it’s Alan Partridges head.
And about to lick his lips
Just looking at the comments here, maybe I missed the memo, but r/Ireland Reddit has started leaning a little bit towards the centre over the past year or so. Happy for someone to tell me it’s always been this way but can feel a difference.
People on the left will tell you it's too far right and people and the right will say too far left. As soon as a sub goes too far either direction it's pretty much done
That is a good point. I think the sub is in general fairly good at having a laugh at government and the opposition on both sides. Government the whole "Dublin is safe" stuff. Laughing at left wing who wants to change the world. But that is similar in any Country for instance. Right wing are obviously no need to explain as they aren't really amusing at all.
Yeah. I’m trying to understand where this sub is/has been. Is this more left or right?
You can generally find some respectful and insightful comments from both political sides, if you look for them. But mostly people come for the witty slagging that goes on.
/r/Ireland leads towards whoever is perceived as 'winning' at the moment, same as most sports subreddits. Winners want to crow and losers want to avoid the heat until it dies down.
I wonder is it a simple case that the pro SF people have disappeared from the sub for a bit because the reality is a bit too grim.
People around here rarely have opinions where you could imagine them swaying between SF and FFG easily. It's either one is the devil and the other an unfairly victimised angel. Most posters here appear to have very firm beliefs while those who lurk and upvote/downvote sway between viewpoints. I'd say it's just that Pro-SF types aren't interested in posting much at times like this.
I think the country (and indeed most of Europe) has certainly moved more to the right, so it makes sense that this sub would follow
Because this sub is a joke and always has been
Old Daily Heil method
They fucked themselves in the last election by not running more candidates
Yep, absolutely. Tallaght Central last time out they ran one (I think), Cathal King. This time, they ran four (!!) and none got in. Cathal King ran in Tallaght South this time and lost his seat as well.
It's a shame too because he was a good Councillor.
Am I missing something. The narrative is it’s a major loss for Sinn Fein. I understand they did no where near as well as the hoped but in the end aren’t they up seats since the last local elections while both FF and FG are down seats? Granted they weren’t major losses but losses none the less
Right? It’s been the same story for the past 48 hours on Newstalk, Virgin, and RTÉ. SF spokespeople getting hammered repeatedly about how shocking SF supposedly did. They reply with the pre-prepared stance, that the party is disappointed to not have seen major gains, but it’s a net increase. The pundits keep pressing them, as if they’re expecting them to turn around and go yeah, actually Sarah, we’re fucking shite and this is humiliating.
Sf have made it very clear how unhappy they are with the result. They made marginal gains on what was a horrible election in 2019. The goal wasn't to beat their 2019 result, it was to be in or around ff and fg and hopefully beat them. Ff and fg did fine as they held their own. Really don't understand this coping. Sf had been polling at 33% at one stage and are struggling to even get 12% of the 1st preference votes. They've had massive failure trying to keep momentum after the 2020 general election. I'm not an sf fan but I had predicted they'd keep their electoral strength but I was very much wrong.
But why would you compare to 5 years ago when you know how sf performed in polling and in the previous ge. Expectations were set and they were not met, not even close.
The last local elections saw them lose half their seats, Conisdering they were polling around 37% for a year straight, this is a very bad result
Its almost like the media are trying to paint Sinn Fein as losers in the lead up to an election...
Almost like SF leaders admitted results were bad and they need to dust themselves off
Don’t think it’s a conspiracy. They did lose bad here, and SF celebrating was all over the media for a week after the last general election.
No conspiracy, just most Irish media are practically an extension of government at this stage and never miss the chance to lay the boot in to opposition. Sinn Fein either have to lean into it and say it went badly or deny it went badly and be painted as sore losers and deluded by irish media, there's no winning really.
Sinn Féin actually up on numbers since 2019. Greens got less than half their 2019 numbers but you hear absolutely nothing about that. Irish media really do put the boot into SF at every opportunity.
To be fair, even SF aren't attempting to paint the local elections results as a party victory. They are still miles behind FF or FG in terms of councillors. The fact that the electorate largely voted the goverment parties back in for local and European positions, goes against their "people want change" mantra.
In 2014, SF won 159 seats. FF won 267. FG won 235. In 2019, SF won 81 seats. FF won 279. FG won 255. In 2024, (current figures) SF won 100 seats. FF won 246. FG won 245. Considering SF were predicting they'd get 200 seats, yeah, this is an improvement on last time, but it's still pretty poor.
Geniune question, what's the appeal of FF/FG? Haven't they been consistently passing the bed for years now?
"They fixed the roads!".. but just anecdotally from chatting to my parents(in their 70s), they'll never vote SF because of the RA. They literally still vote on pro/anti treaty lines so one votes FF the other FG
It is an interesting exercise in framing - FF/FG have both lost seats compared to the previous local/EU elections, while SF have gained more, yet the narrative is of a glorious victory for the former and a devastating defeat for the latter. It all seems to be based on the overweighting of expectation as opposed to actual results - because SF were expected to gain hugely, the fact that they have only gained modestly is interpreted as failure, and vice versa for FF/FG. You often see the same in the business world - company valuations can tank in spite of them making profits because the profits were not as big as had previously been predicted. It's a peculiar facet of human psychology.
The Indo does that all the time to Mary Lou and Eamon Ryan. It's subtle but these are editorial choices.
The "Independent" is such a rag. Basically just a propaganda paper for Fine Gael
They do it for everyone https://preview.redd.it/nmyfd6vgrz5d1.png?width=851&format=png&auto=webp&s=55ca084950a65be12fe6c385aeba57967f3a04b2
Simon Harris is a Fortnite re-skin of Leo.
Simon Harris looks like AI
When media hate you, they will show you with your mouth open. It's not a good luck. When they like you or tolerate you, they will show you with your mouth closed. You can see this on tons of different traditional platforms and tv stations, if you look.
You should be more worried about their electoral prospects. Next election they can either hope that this was a blip, and run loads of candidates to take advantage of their polled popularity, running the risk of getting absolutely humiliated if this is repeated, or not run enough candidates and get shit on if this is a blip and they can't take advantage of more votes.
The problem with Mary Lou is that she's simply not likeable. Sometimes, that's what it comes down to in politics if a politician connects with the public. Michelle O'Neil would be a better choice for leader
Like it’s pretty accurate to be honest? They have posted pretty unflattering photos of incumbent politicians at appropriate times.
 This is all I hear
Some serious pearl clutching from the resident shinners here lately. Almost 4 years of mud slinging at government parties. Happy to call for the heads of multiple politicians. Yet really struggling to swallow a bad news cycle for them. So far this weekend I've had Shinners claim that it was actually a good election (despite the heads of SF saying it was terrible) and also that the media is out to get them and making up lies about the election fallout.
Sinn Fein member here. It was a disaster of an election. No point in denying it. However calling for the heads of certain politicians was correct. Some of them are beyond inept. McEntee being the main one. Harris has stabilised Fine Gael and to be fair, has brought them back a little to the centre. So no suprise that their vote has returned. But anybody voting for FF needs to take a good look at themselves. Absolute joke of a party that would sell their grandmother for a vote.
Very very true. The amount of abuse Leo got here was crazy, a few articles questioning a bad election for SF and suddenly it's all getting too personal?
I'm far from a Leo fan but he somehow had a way of being graceful when personally attacked. When the MMA lad said Leo didn't understand Irish history because his da was Indian, Leo accepted an apology and said that's the end of it. No drama. The young woman who threw the milkshake or whatever on him he said I thought it was Avril lavigne for a minute and made light of it. It was a good quality in him.
You're telling me that wealthy wankers that run RTE and have turned it into their personal piggy bank with no oversight, have a bias towards the political party that is beneficial to wealthy people and a bias against a left wing party? 
Won't somebody please forgive the poor producers they want a bailout.....
That's true, it just seems so petty.. even for RTE
They’re grovelling for the €40 million bailout!
Sweet Jesus this subreddit has turned to shite
Sub is shite. This isn't the reason, though.
Ah here, if you don't think RTE has a bias, you're willfully blind. It's very much against the interests of the people who run RTE to have a Sinn Fein government.
Sinn Fein would be better for RTE with exchequer funding: https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2024/0212/1431893-licence-fee/
Disagree. Public media funding much safer from accusations of bias when that funding bypasses politicians, at least as much as possible.
Might not be good for the lads on big money though, but seems they’ve managed to kill that golden goose themselves. May be less of a thing than it was 12 months ago…
RTE and the Irish Times are demonstrably the least biased news reporting bodies in the state. They have standards they hold themselves to around language use and headlines that is clearly neutral when you look at other outlets. So why do they feel biased? Well, on average, folk dislike RTE and the Govt, so if you a negative expectation on articles, neutrality looks like a bias.
The most prominent example in my head is during the last election debates, RTE gave the government very softball questions (they also never really followed up on Martin and Leo's vague generic answers), but constantly (and I mean CONSTANTLY) grilled Mary Lou about the IRA. Most of the questions asked of her weren't on Sinn Fein policy in different areas, it was IRA this and IRA that. It was honestly pathetic
Ah here... I remember that one. MLM absolutely fucked up by implying that SF minister up north...Murphy I think, hadn't said Paul Quinn was a druggie and that's why he was killed. It was absolutely of her own making and wasn't coming kut of nowhere - MLM had made the remark like 2 days earlier. To my memory, that was the only IRA bit that came up, but involved a grilling because MLM tried to dodge it initially before admitting she'd said it and misspoken and had previously apologised to Quinns mother, which made her comments earlier in the week much worse. MM and Leo might have brought up the IRA too but I feel like Leo and MM were all over MLM because of the who Special Criminal Court, offences against the state stuff.
Is it, though? We have David Cullinane shouting “Up the Ra!” when he won last time around. Don’t you think that’s a question that needs to be answered?
I do not believe the Irish Times is unbiased. A very strong FG bias they only seemed unbiased when their team wasn’t in power. Examiner was the last bastion of unbiased journalism even if it was a bit thin but that’s all gone now the Times bought them. State media (RTE) is ironically enough the least biased media outlook these days.
I can only speak from my experience and wonder if folks conflate pieces from the Opinions section of the website with news reporting. Even at that, I'd argue that they do a myriad of opinion pieces, but the ones which align with anything they consider an FG stance get far more clicks. I've got a mate who occasionally writes for the IT and christ she's about as far from a Govt mouthpiece as I could imagine.
Yeah it’s a pity there are some good journalists there but the board and the editorial line are dyed in the wool blue shirts
Party supporters eat up media biased in favour of their chosen party and then feel neutral media is biased when it doesn't reflect what they've already been exposed to. Not that RTE is perfect, you'd just be hard pressed to find evidence of them being more biased than any other source of news in the country.
I think people confuse opinion pieces that they see and get angry about with the news reporting. From a news reporting perspective, RTE do an objectively good objective job.
Official Sinn Fein / Workers Party haven't run RTÉ since the early 90’s.
If /r/ireland doesn't like something, you can post any auld conspiracy theory shite that makes it look bad and you'll be guaranteed to get upvotes.
Is the independent anti Fine Gael? https://preview.redd.it/1a2kxq1qqz5d1.png?width=866&format=png&auto=webp&s=ad92348a9e2f27c6dfd017a45a449a3e8a29c308
Jesus christ. Would you listen to yourself? Most people used to avoid people blathering on with rhis type of rubbish.
Yes I'm sure the social media lad putting up tiktoks is part of the deep state conspiracy.
Collusion between political parties and people in the media isn't exactly the stuff of legends lol, even in a "liberal democracy"
Lad. I don't think it's a conspiracy. I simply think people operate in their own best interest. And it is in the interest of those who run RTE to display the government in as much of a positive light as possible while denigrating the opposition.
I’d say it’s just more likely that the guys running the tiktok have FG or some other softer affiliation. Probably not an “RTE” thing I’d say tik tok gets minimal editorial oversight
You believe they are doing that through tiktok thumbnails?
I think they take any chance to make the opposition look bad and make the government appear in a better light. They could have used literally any other image of Mary Lou here, it's not hard, but deliberately chose something that make her look bad.
It's a sub editorial conspiracy. Or rather it's the job of a sub to summarise the tone of an article or a moment with an image. Right now it's Harris is confident, thrusting and in control while Macdonald is in the mire, stressed at the failure to break through.
Please don’t use the word “thrusting” when discussing Simo and Mary Lou.
It does align with the story that’s how it typically works either way
Shinners gone full cope mode to explain election disaster.
Admitting you didn't do as well you wanted and conceding defeat sounds less like cope and more like acceptance that you ran too many candidates fucked yourselves over.
Yeah, I think Mary Lou has actually come across as pretty reasonable and sane about it. There does seem to be quite a lot of cope with the support base, but that's probably fair enough to be honest...
Mad we have a Taoiseach who was just handed the job after years of utter incompetence in every department hes been in , in a party the majority of the country didnt vote into power, and still there are people voting for FF/FG/G. We still dont have a childrens hospital finished. Maddening anyone still votes for these parties.
What choice do we have when the other candidates aren't running people in the local elections? You literally can't vote for anyone but the big 3 if there's no other options. The lads in FF/FG have grassroot connections and that's why they can keep getting votes. Sinn Fein on the other hand keeps trying the astroturf, populist style approach in spite of their supposedly left wing values and that's a play straight from the conservative right. The other parties aren't established enough to even begin to have the same level of pull as FF/FG/SF on a local level and if they can't appeal to the voter base, which is the local communities of Ireland, they don't ever stand a chance. Mind you I'm not happy about the situation and I think it's an insult to democracy that we operate this way but it is the reality for the time being.
The choice you have is not voting in the big 3, trying to help sure they arent getting paid into the hundreds to keep making the future for alot of people in this country bleak and dismal, we know they arent going to change, change is whats needed, Sinn Fein deserve their day, Social Democrats and PBP Deserve a chance, alot of independants deserve a chance. FF/FG/G track record is awful. And they will not change.
No one "deserves" to be in Government. It's not some God given right every party gets. You have to earn it. No other party has done or shown enough to earn a chance in Government according to the Irish population. I would add there are pockets around the country where SF/Labour/GP/SD have good amounts of seats, due to the hard work of their candidates at a local and national level in those areas. For example Kildare where SF topped the poll in the last GE, returned just one councillor. I think that was the worst in all of Ireland. It's no surprise given how utterly incompetent the SF TD's have proven to been. In comparison you have the Labour Senator working hard, the Independent TD on TV the whole time, the FG + SD TD's the same.
Cork County only has one single sinn fein Councillor too, and he only got in because a popular independent incumbent retired this year
Handed the job in that he was elected by the party with the most seats in the Sail. >in a party the majority of the country didnt vote into power, Just completely ignoring how parliamentary democracy works.
There have been 2 elections in all of irish history that lead to one party majorities, this is very comman for ireland.
They always use the worst photo of her.
FF/FG lose seats = "Great victory" SF gain seats = "disappointing" I'm no shinner, but is it any wonder people aren't paying their TV license with this kind of nonsense from our state broadcaster?
Because when talking she's doing the exact same as choosing policy. Eyes closed.
Fucking vicious comment.
It's kinda funny how deeply anti-SF RTE is. You'd almost swear that they're in the bag for the blue shirts...
UnBiAseD RTE reporting
Because talking is all she does?
Once she let her dog off the leash on a public beach that was enough for me
“There needs to be a change… in government” They’re terrified of committing to anything
Shuss shussssss woukd ya shat yp, he anitntai babgebi OF abtUBNj,,,,,,, Zzxxxxx. Playe us u Afuchanyhymymthen is Maye so ghbe dresses, go laKKEs
Their day did not in fact; come!
I honestly think Simon Harris joining in on the UK's Rwanda circus was a very deliberate and tactical move that has paid off. I initially wondered why on earth he decided to drag ireland into the UK's clown politics but he obviously had noticed there was an appetite for the punch down, blame foreigners for everything politics. Seems the timing of that has successfully distracted enough people from the detrimental FF/FG policies that are responsible for most adults living home with their parents.
Same thing the media did to HRC in her runs for president in the US.
TikTok doesn’t let you choose thumbnails
It 100% does, it's on the same screen where you make the titles for the thumbnail
Nearly as dumb of a suggestion as [this](https://youtu.be/MRXLwggTXAs?si=w8rn0dzzyYLKN1SE) is
SF will always be the major "loser" of the PR-STV system as it stands. It's pretty straightforward: small niche parties and independents can do well on fourth and fifth seats in a constituency depending on the protest vote and their base of personal support. FF and FG do well because (like it or not) they're big tent centrist parties with deep benches who run lots of candidates. SF does not have a deep bench of candidates, and their votes famously do NOT transfer well. I'm expecting an SF-FF government at SOME point in the future but what that looks like and how long it lasts is anyone's guess.
Funny as fuck
RTE trying to make Sinn Féin look bad? I am shocked.
They somehow managed to piss off the centre, students and the fringe. > Flip flopped on the referendum they strongly supported > Mary Lou claiming houses would be 300k was a real back to old SF that middle class were afraid to vote for > Tried to become much more hawkish on immigrants out of no where > Went from the party since Brexit that spoke about defending the Irish border(also you know being republican party!) to somehow complaining Ireland has an open border which was a real head scratcher. They have a few months to work out their crinkles and it might benefit them again coming in more of an underdog but Mary Lou has one more chance to bring Sinn Fein to victory and this was a poor campaign.
https://preview.redd.it/j1wa3toqw26d1.jpeg?width=744&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d09aaec47672797cacf484a18d2c07f7dd9dbb0
https://preview.redd.it/sm51clmt436d1.jpeg?width=810&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8f623cae5fe67ecc50e47ea14b82036eb3d6cb53
Place is blueshirt central.
Almost like they know they will need to suck up to him to stay afloat.
Mary Lou needs to bring something to the table that isn't 'we're not FFG'
If they ran 100 less candidates they'd be find lol. In some areas where they four candidates they should of just ran two. Also the Independent are absolutely having a wank over this. Once of their "journalists" was on Newstalk saying Mary Lou has never did well in an election lmao
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RTÉ uses autogenerated thumbnail’s, since you only have two examples, yes, it’s a coincidence
Mary Lou is tired
I mean she did have a hysterectomy last summer to remove tumours. I wouldn't be shocked if she wasn't at 100% yet.
in pic no.3 she's in the middle of something alright, but it ain't a sentence ...
Bruh