Political World
Sinn Fein hit by a double ‘Seamus Darby moment’
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
Politics is full of Seamus Darby moments.
To understand this metaphor you have to go back 30 years.
The Kerry team of that era was the finest team of all time.
In 1984, it was going for a five-in-a-row, underlining its utter dominance of Gaelic football at the time.
The only team that stood in its way was Offaly – a very good team but very much in the underdog mode.
And in the All-Ireland final in Croke Park, Kerry seemed to be cruising to victory.
However, Offaly had managed to say in touch and was only one score behind.
In the dying moments of the game a speculative high diagonal ball was sent in towards the Kerry goal.
Darby had not featured much for the Offaly team that year and had just come on as a sub.
He was big and strong. Using his body plus a hint of a nudge he was able to displace his opponent from position and catch the ball behind him, on the left edge of the parallelogram.
He hit a shot that arced over the Charlie Nelligan into the far corner.
It was the clincher. The game was over in seconds and – against all odds – Offaly were All Ireland champions.
Now read on…
Being a politics column, it’s not good luck we are celebrating. The very opposite in face.
How often do we see a political party ‘ar mhuin na muice’ (on the pig’s back) one moment and being unceremoniously dumped onto their backside seconds later.
It’s already happened with Fine Gael and Labour this year. Whatever bounce the parties got from the reshuffle and the Budget was wiped away completely by the Seanad byelection mess and by the continuing controversy over water charges; as well as the set-up costs of Irish Water.
The beneficiaries? Well not Fianna Fáil. It’s not going anywhere particularly fast at present, but then it has kept its nose clean of late which might just benefit it a little.
Sinn Féin seemed to have been the biggest beneficiary. But the moment we all started to pronounce the party’s rise as inexorable and unassailable was the moment we experienced a Seamus Darby moment.
An Irish Times poll conducted by Ipsos mrbi showed Sinn Féin as the largest party in Dublin with support levels of an astounding 39 per cent among the working classes.
That support should have been pushed through to the by-election in Dublin South West which should have been the party’s for the taking.
Instead, it was called out on a specific policy issue. In early September, the party had signalled that only one issue was a red line issue of the party – and that was property tax. But then when it began campaigning in the by-election, its candidate Cathal King said that the water charges change was also a red line issue. In the end, the party leadership was left with little choice but to say that it would not enter any coalition arrangement without the charges being reversed.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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