A week of gaffes and guffaws in Irish politics

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

We have had a spate of political gaffes in the past week, some trivial, some serious. At the lowest end of the scale was the momentary embarrassment of Shane Ross who, in a tweet, mistook which of the Kearney rugby playing brothers he was photographed with. He tweeted that he welcomed home Dave, when it was really Rob. “Thank you Leo,” was Rob’s replying tweet later on.

Of more concern is a pattern within Sinn Féin. The party has got itself into serious trouble on social media in recent months.

Over the years, the party’s supporters have been angrier and more OTT than possibly any other group since the advent of Twitter and Facebook but the tone, especially from its political representatives, has mellowed considerably in recent times. it has not stopped the occasional transgression and when they have happened they have been major breaches.

In January, one of its MPs Barry McElduff posted a completely inappropriate video on his Facebook page which showed him walking around the place with a loaf of Kingsmill bread atop his head. It was posted on the anniversary of the 1976 Kingsmill massacre where 10 Protestant workmen were murdered by the IRA.

Sinn Féin suspended McElduff for three months – he subsequently resigned his Westminster seat.

Only two months later, the party has repeated the practice. Over the weekend, a spoof account @rnerrionstreet slurred a murdered Portlaoise prison officer, Brian Stack, by describing him as a sadist.

Its Dublin-based Senator Maire Devine retweeted it and then compounded the insult by engaging in a Twitter exchange with Austin Stack, the son of the the murdered prison officer.

Sinn Féin moved quickly. Its Ard Chomhairle happened to be meeting in Dublin this weekend. Devine was suspended for three months with Mary Lou McDonald using very direct language such as “zero tolerance” and “catastrophic error”.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.