Author | Lightnews

Paddy Matthews @paddymatthews.bsky.social · 16h

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 · 7d

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 · 7d

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 · 7d

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