Sinn Féin in the lead! FF & FG surprised?! What do you think? Exciting or scary times?!

[Housiemousie]

I have always been a Fine Gael voter. I'm from a long line of FG voters, many active in the party, who would be horrified by how much I want Mary Lou to succeed.

I really want to like Leo. He looks the part but he's not speaking to me. I am self employed in rural Ireland and neither FF or FG have sounded like they know I or any of my family or friends exist in the 20 years I have lived here (having worked abroad for a decade post uni). I even have a soft spot for Micheál Martin (who can resist a Cork accent) But I am not a farmer so he's not representing me either.

So why is Mary Lou so appealing? I couldn't even listen to Gerry Adams. Is it the fact that because she's not northern I'm not thinking IRA? Or because we really have moved past that , or is it that we are so, so sick of the entrenched fat cats of FF and FG that anything (well, almost, you can keep Aontu) will be better?

I'd love to hear I'm not alone in finding this upcoming election more exciting than previous ones.

🤦‍♀️

Oh I think Labour hearts are in the right place, it's just that politics is a kind of hobby/benevolent charity work for them unless it applies to the middle classes. In Ireland if you're in a union you're grand anyway.

Really worried about SF in government, maybe it's the fear of the unknown

www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/find-out-if-your-local-td-is-a-landlord-or-owns-multiple-properties-1.3393692%3fmode=amp

All the where did FF/FG go wrong questions...

Getting a bit sick of SF using the national flag. That's my flag and I don't vote SF.

SF have 21 seats so far, FF and FG 1 each.

I live in UK but come from rural Ireland and would have always supported fine Gael (even though family is FF) as they seemed more decent and honest than Haughey, Bertie et Al.
However it does gall me to see well off farmers, who've been able to build their own houses for a relatively small amount yet still seem to qualify for medical cards, university grants etc whereas urban dwellers are taxed to the hilt, yet seem to get few benefits

However it does gall me to see well off farmers, who've been able to build their own houses for a relatively small amount yet still seem to qualify for medical cards, university grants etc whereas urban dwellers are taxed to the hilt, yet seem to get few benefits

The think that gets me are builders/tradesmen. An entire industry sees tax as voluntary, because everything is paid in cash.

There's all this talk about our emerging cashless society, until you have to pay a builder and then you go and withdraw 6k from your bank account in cash, no questions asked.

Leo just got in - on the fifth count. Unprecedented.

I knew a family whose son lost the university grant when the brand new BMW driving father became a FF Senator. Taxable salary, couldn't get around it.

@Apileofballyhoo yes about the flag!

What time do the counts stop, the counters must be bewildered now! I could do without the singing and flags too, it's all a bit dup.

Can't believe anyone is shocked by the SF results - people have been saying for weeks that they were strong here in my part of Clare - I gave the ex Labour party Independant candidate my no 1 - couldn't bring myself to vote for any party at all

It’s a marvelous result for the working class who finally have voted for their own interests. I’m not a SF voter (I suppose very few were until they... did) but I welcome the genuine shift to the left and the change that hopefully will come. To me these election results show that Irish people care about our most vulnerable members of society and have rejected the spin and neo-liberal policies of the right. Brexit, referendums, huge social change have distracted the middle class from the fact that, for so many of us, Ireland isn’t working.
Embrace the change - could it be any worse?

The IRA took the flag decades ago. I was watching a British show where a couple getting married in France had British flags festooned about the place, we were saying you just wouldn't do that with an Irish Flag because you'd be verging on identifying as a Provo.

Worrying times though I hope Leo, Mehole et al are shuddering at how wrong they had read their people and are already working on how to rectify this.

Manormouse, we are constituency buddies. We had visits from Lorna the green candidate, Jerry buttimer and Michael McGrath!

Of the people who voted SF, are you voting for their policies to improve health, housing, fairer tax etc or are you voting for their nationalist ideology ... or is it a bit of both?
Just curious really to try and understand the mindset of people who have switched to SF?

a couple getting married in France had British flags festooned about the place

To be fair the British flag was also commandeered by the likes of the National Front.

@FickleTickle, I don’t think that’s true at all. And, after decades of living in England, people with the Union Jack or St George’s flag flying in their garden tend to be EDL or Britain first types. It’s been a long time since a Cool Britannia.

Was it the actual flag? I know an Irish couple who got married in France and the mayor at the ceremony had a red white and blue sash, the French tricolour.
I think the Irish flag still belong to everyone, my kids used to colour them in and bring them home from their church of Ireland school. There was a lot of flag raising in 1916 commemoration.
Maybe all elected candidates should sing Ireland s call!

Steel agree but nonetheless I'm worried about SF being genuinely left. Pleased that a lot of people said they were voting for public services rather than tax cuts. FF are to me the party of tax cuts. I'm more a public services kind of person myself.

“The fear of the unknown” What do you think SF are going to do? Force us to sing rebel songs and get bobby sands tattoos 🙄😂
I voted for Mary Lou. She has done so much for her constituency. She’s not a bullshitter and I truly believe she’ll do her best.
I always wondered who voted FF and FG. I see you are all on craicnet. After everything they have done to bring Ireland to its knees while lining their own pockets you STILL vote for them?!

So disgusted by the people of this country voting for SF, forgetting about all the criminals and murderers they associated with.
I'm not at all optimistic about Ireland's future with whatever government they hack together.
Personally I have never had a an allegiance to any party, just tried to look for good people.
Just never SF or the likes of Aontu bible bashers.

Yeah Aontú are a bit mental. I'm torn between wtf with voting SF and being glad people voted left/away from FF/FG. I wonder where all the sf transfers will go. I've often given my final preference to FG as I've been in constituencies where nobody from a smaller party would get in anyway. I couldn't this time though because wrong side of the abortion referendum.

What kind of a government are we going to get at all at all. Basically I'd have been happy enough with FG if they'd built a few houses and genuinely tried to do something with the health service. The thing is is that it costs a fortune and we've nothing to show for it, and it's been like that since Micheál was Minister of Health. I keep seeing this argument that it's keeping old hospitals open that costs so much but as far as I can see in my area if there's anything wrong with you you get sent to Dublin or Cork so I dunno what Kilkenny or Waterford hospitals do - and the horror stories about Ardkeen are legion. I know there was a big fight on to keep Clonmel open. I see the independent that topped the poll in Cork West is on about Bantry Hospital - which they've been trying to close since I was a child I'd swear. But it's bad roads for all of West Cork trying to get to Cork so it's one argument I can understand. Lots of rural Ireland is really inaccessible.

I remember Mary Harney going on and on about centres of excellence. But surely that should only be for non emergency type stuff, and there should be a certain distance over which people don't have to travel. I remember reading about people from Donegal getting a bus to Galway for chemo, which is ludicrous. Can't stand her anyway.

Surely it can't all be being spent on keeping old hospitals open?

So disgusted by the people of this country voting for SF, forgetting about all the criminals and murderers they associated with

All the major parties bar the Greens and Labour originated in the struggle for independence and the civil war, and one even absorbed a fascist movement into itself. There is a lot of pearl clutching about SF and a good deal of amnesia about the history of Irish political parties' origins, along with a very strange amnesia about the role all of them played in setting up and maintaining the horrific laundries and industrial schools.

My 86 yo mother voted FF then Greens then SF. She and her brother got together and discussed their strategies (different constituencies) and this was their plan. Neither would ever vote FG.

Her Green candidate got in on the first count (Dun Laoghaire). Her transfer wasn't needed.

Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP) got a lot of transfers from SF.