Author | Lightnews

Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 5h

FG in the border counties would traditionally have had two contradictory votebases, the other of which was Definitely Not The AOH. This revival attempt in Cavan would have been prior to the Varadkar/Harris era, of course, where it would not have fitted the new image.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 5h

Still supposedly a factor in FG politics in Monaghan (there was an attempt by local FGers in Cavan to revive them a decade or so ago).

Marwood @marwoodlennox.bsky.social · 5h

Totally unrelatedly the AoH have been extremely marginal in Irish life since the 1920s (a bit longer in Northern Ireland).

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 5h

A market that has largely been cornered by *checks notes* VOX, unless she's planning an unexplored version of Spanish "liberalism" that doesn't boil down to "¡Habla cristiano!"

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 1d

www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland... Always a charmer.

Ivan Yates: ‘I was a poster boy for bankruptcy tourism’

Broadcaster relieved at return of family home, and plans to step back from media

www.irishtimes.com

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 3d

It's not that there might not be an appetite for a change in government policy (or change of government full stop), but those people who view this as a mandate for the most crankish parts of the Trot/SocDem/Green agendas might well be in for a land when the general election comes round.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 3d

You have an unpopular government which told obvious lies about housing in the last election, had just slapped the voters in the face with a budget, and where both constituent parties had selected dud candidates (one of whom self-destructed and the other of whom never got out of first gear).

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 3d

Just as the referendums last year got massively over-interpreted by one side (a reaction to culture-war overreach, definitely, but not a signing-up to the whole of the opposition's agenda), the Irish Online Left (and some of its journalistic sympathisers) are massively over-interpreting this one.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 5d

Should we ask why he fled the country?!?

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 6d

Drawda was a county corporate until 1843(?) (although "County of the Town of" rather than "County of the City of") along with Kilkenny, Galway, and... Carrickfergus.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 8d

There was a proposal from the Constitutional Convention to do that (via citizen signatures) but it went nowhere, strangely enough. Can't think why.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 8d

Yep, the purpose wasn't "to make it easier to get on the ballot"; it was to provide an exercise in letting off steam alongside the SSM referendum that the government actually wanted passed.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 8d

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doogie_....

Doogie Howser, M.D. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 8d

"President Dougie Howser" was absolutely not a meaningful reform and was not intended to be.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 8d

More narrowly but still has a FG-shaped millstone around her neck.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 9d

- which were always going to act as kindling for the far-right to take advantage of). A lot of the slogans I saw were those being promoted on Facebook or X by the "Spoil The Vote" campaign (a front for the kook anti-vax anti-immigrant right). /end

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 9d

the fatal stabbing of a 17-year-old Ukrainian asylum-seeker by a Somali asylum-seeker in shared accommodation, the conviction of a number of members of the Puska family for withholding or destroying evidence in the Ashling Murphy murder case /3

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 9d

3. A lot of invective, chiefly but not exclusively anti-immigration (there have been a number of prominent criminal cases over the last couple of weeks - the alleged sexual assault of a 10-year-old which set off the riots in Saggart this week, /2

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 9d

From what I saw yesterday morning there were three roughly equal categories:

1. A lot of write-ins for Steen (level or outpolling Gavin).
2. A lot of general "against all" (X's in all three boxes or over the overall candidate listing, "none of the above", "no choice"). /1

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 9d

More to the point, it's where his parents came from.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 10d

Good to see the usual weaponised and ideologically-convenient takes posing as analysis coming from all quarters.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 10d

Clearly getting large lump of the FF/ex-FF vote that made it down to the polling station.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 10d

Dissatisfied FFers I imagine largely stayed at home.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 10d

Quite a bit of Twitter inspiration. Ashling Murphy and the Saggart case also came up frequently.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 10d

Quite a lot of Steen write-ins in the ones I saw, along with more general dissatisfaction.

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Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 10d

Currently running about 6,000.