Okay, let’s keep in mind my caution about the current polls… but the most recent one this weekend from the Sunday Business Post was - despite showing no variation from the previous one, bar a 1% increase for Sinn Féin and a 1% decrease for the Independents, pretty telling in its own way.
Firstly the fact [...]

An interesting comment on the allegations surrounding Gerry Adams brother was added to a piece on the topic on Irish Left Review a couple of weeks ago. It’s one of three comments, but is of considerable utility in pointing up some of the problems implicit in the issue…
“It would be unworthy of a left-wing blog [...]

It’s interesting reading the article by Harry McGee in the Irish Times about Sinn Féin and its current troubles. That topic, though, is for another day, albeit I find it hard to disagree with him when he argues that
“There are some who believe Sinn Féin is in terminal decline, like other republican parties that preceded [...]

There’s been so much news in the past week or two that it’s difficult to remember that the Sunday Business Post ran a poll the results of which were published on the 22nd of November. And it’s a fascinating poll in its own way because it points to a serious disconnect now between the government [...]

Pdf of SPI 1973 Report of the 1st national congress here: SPI73REPORT
As a means of opening the discussion on the SPI the accompanying document was donated by Mark P (for which many thanks and many thanks also to the SP for allowing us access to some documents from their archive) and seems entirely suitable for [...]

Let’s think happy thoughts for a brief while because much else is… well, less than happy. So, here’s something that cheered me up at least a bit and it’s a point that is rarely touched on by commentators more concerned with the jockeying for position of the larger centre right political parties. Reading The Lost [...]

It’s not up there with “5 more years”, battle cry of both Republicans and Democrats in the not too distant past, now is it? But that’s the reality we’re now facing in the wake of the vote at the Green Party Convention this weekend. 31 months to be precise, leaving out this one, that is [...]

Recently on the Cedar Lounge Revolution smiffy raised an interesting point which was that the future path of the Green Party might be quite similar to that of Democratic Left. I hadn’t thought about it in quite those terms before, not least because I suspect the future for the Green Party may not even be [...]

There’s a certain notion in the air that an election is near inevitable now. And, in one sense hasn’t that always been the case. But, it is correct that the chances of an election this year are better now than they have been. So, with that in mind what are the rumours swirling about out [...]

Does the thought of NAMA concern you? And is the economic crisis and the proposed part solution, the McCarthy Report, a source of anxiety? Are you a bit puzzled as to the rhetoric surrounding it, after all the principals involved seem somewhat hazy on precisely what the effects of the implementation of both those will [...]