Aras11 – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Irish Times Poll: It’s all about Higgins, Gallagher and McGuinness (and poor Gay Mitchell)…

Mick Fealty on October 6, 2011, 9:29 am

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Well that’s one of my Betfair punts in the waste basket, and the other one could yet cost me some serious cash. However, let’s remember for now that this is still only a gameshow! The Red C poll results are out later, but for now, this is the #Aras11 world according to Ipsos/MRB: Michael D Higgins 23 per cent (up five points); Seán Gallagher 20 per cent (up seven points); Martin McGuinness 19 per cent (not in last poll); Mary …

Yes, IRA violence was remorseless, but what caused it? And who brought it to an end?

Mick Fealty on October 6, 2011, 8:59 am

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Martina Devlin with a timely observation: A debate about the North has become intertwined with the presidential race — one which should have taken place at the time of the Good Friday Agreement more than 13 years ago, but was sidelined amid euphoria about peace in our time. Quite so. It is an important debate. The problem is that partition has worked to the extent that the largest body of opinion in the Republic, feels ‘the North’ is an embarrassment …

Where is the Fianna Fail vote going in #Aras11?

Mick Fealty on October 5, 2011, 10:56 pm

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This has just come up as an off topic conversation on another thread. Whilst the Red C poll gives a good idea of where the candidates where just before the campaign began, it does tell us where the core vote of each of the parties is going. Both Sinn Fein and Labour candidates were up on their parties poll showing, whilst Fine Gael was spectacularly down. But given none of the four other candidates are representatives of political parties, it …

Gay Mitchell is a Presidential candidate

Blank on October 4, 2011, 10:15 pm

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http://youtu.be/2eKqUyD5y0U (This may not be him) Blank

Eamonn Dunphy: “It is better if listeners know what your views are”

Mick Fealty on October 4, 2011, 11:01 am

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I have to say I cannot see what’s wrong in principle with Eamonn Dunphy declaring which candidate he was going to vote for whilst continuing his role as a journalist during a tense election campaign. He may have run foul of the strict broadcasting rules, but as he notes himself: Dunphy said as a “general principle” he believed it was right that broadcasters should not publicly declare their support for an election candidate in or out of the studio, but …

Davis makes financial disclosure. Will McGuinness follow?

Mick Fealty on October 3, 2011, 2:02 pm

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Mary Davis has been getting a lot of stick from the press about her various public appointments. Now, she’s published her P60 and her earnings as a director. In yesterday’s NewsTalk engagement Martin McGuinness also promised a similar disclosure… That would be a disclosure, Gerard’s been waiting for some months for… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and …

McGuinness on killing of innocents: “It’s quite legitimate for the term murder to be used…”

Mick Fealty on October 3, 2011, 11:24 am

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Hard ball interviews are vastly over rated in political journalism. A good example of the fruits of a ‘slow ball’ delivery is David McKittrick’s interview in today’s London Independent with Martin McGuinness. In particular this section: The conflict in the city was bitter, he says, with a lot of people killed on all sides. “I lost a lot of friends at the hands of the British Army,” he says. “The person who actually introduced me to my wife, Colm Keenan, …

Hogan hits the panic button: #aras11

John Ó Néill on October 2, 2011, 11:51 pm

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While the Dunphy show had the Mitchell v McGuinness face-off, the real fun was elsewhere, including today’s Sunday Independent which had a direct attack on Sinn Féin’s candidate by Fine Gael’s Phil Hogan (amongst others). It is hard to believe (looking at this morning’s paper) that the campaign is still a long way out from election day. Hogan, a Carlow-Kilkenny TD, is the party’s blunt director of elections and general fixer (and erstwhile Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government). While the paper contained a number of articles, Hogan’s intervention in the presidential …

#Aras11: McGuinness versus Mitchell on Newstalk

Mick Fealty on October 2, 2011, 9:26 pm

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This debate on the Dunphy Show this morning is well worth listening to for two reasons. One, given Mr Dunphy has said he will be voting for Martin McGuinness, we can be fairly sure the Derry man was given a fair crack of the whip. And two, it’s the first time on this campaign I’ve heard Gay Mitchell (a Queens graduate) put through his paces. Those of you who have already heard it will no doubt have your views immediately …

Gay Mitchell and the Commonwealth

John Ó Néill on September 30, 2011, 11:51 am

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Gay Mitchell may be no stranger to Slugger, but for those unfamiliar with the other candidates in the presidential election, Cormac McQuinn’s critical piece in the Daily Mail back in July provides a useful introduction to the Dublin MEP. That Slugger piece from 2006 links back to Mitchell’s address to the annual Fine Gael Collins-Griffith memorial in August 2006 on the Fine Gael website, an item which is no longer accessible (or archived) although some quotes and more comments can be read here and here. …

Something about Mary, first Presidential candidate in Belfast (video added)

Mick Fealty on September 29, 2011, 4:09 pm

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Residents of Northern Ireland may not have vote as of right, but I suspect there are more than a few Irish denizens of Belfast who’ll be sneaking back to the Donegal ranch or running down to the ma’s in Dublin to cast their unofficial ex pat vote. Anyhoo, Mary Davis is the first candidate to platform in Belfast… She’ll be at the Crescent Arts Centre this evening between 6 and 7:30pm… Update: I hope he’ll go on serving as Deputy …

If McGuinness is right then an awful lot of people are lying about the past…

Mick Fealty on September 29, 2011, 1:45 pm

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Brian Feeney makes a strong point in yesterday’s Irish News in which he contrasts the ‘good’ IRA (the one that spawned the mainstream political parties of the Republic), and the ‘bad’, the one operated solely by their political rivals, Sinn Fein. If there is a difference in the treatment given each, then it is surely dependent on more than just an inchoate animus within the southern media towards us rough neck Nordies. Three alternative factors immediately come to mind: The ‘Free …

McGuinness: success is just about losing well?

Blank on September 28, 2011, 8:29 pm

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Martin McGuinness’ entry into the Presidential race has surely shook things up. However while some of the shriller media commentary has focused on the danger of him winning, it is past time to ask what would really constitute a victory for McGuinness and Sinn Féin. For this discussion we may need to abandon the ludicrous notion he was ever ‘in it to win it’. If you accept SF didn’t enter their star man into the contest to be beaten and …

#Aras11: Two Fine Gael Chairs use ‘casting votes’ to block Norris

Mick Fealty on September 27, 2011, 1:28 pm

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Norris gets the vote from the Waterford City Council… So that’s Fingal, Laois and now Waterford… Interesting point to note that two of the councils (South Dublin and Carlow) who rejected him both did so on the casting vote of the Chairman… Given this is only for entry to another election, is this an indication of worries inside Fine Gael (Labour, who appear to be allowing individual discretion) the poor showing of their candidate, nominating what’s recognised as the weaker …

Martin McGuinness plans to take a new broom to ‘pacific’ Aras tradition…

Mick Fealty on September 27, 2011, 12:08 pm

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Áras an Uachtaráin - residence of the Irish President, and soon to be home to Northern Irish bees

I think this is well worth noting. Too many, it seems to me are presuming things about the Irish Presidency which rely on tradition (not least the one that says Fianna Fail’s guiding hand must be on all, but one, incumbent) but are not actually written into the Constitution. Martin McGuinness takes the trouble to point out what some of his plans are, should he be lucky enough to win the race to the Aras: “There have been some suggestions …

From #aras97 to #aras11: has the media decommissioned?

John Ó Néill on September 27, 2011, 9:22 am

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Áras an Uachtaráin - residence of the Irish President, and soon to be home to Northern Irish bees

Some more of the commentary on the 1997 Presidential campaign. While many new media tools are available for #aras11, the behind-the-scenes briefing and leaks are probably no different (the end products are summarised here by Mick). While politics inevitably includes a deep interrogation of individual candidate’s past utterances, the contribution of the media to the shape of past election campaigns tends to be kept below the radar by the, eh, media. Similarly, northern commentators, for long briefed by the NIO and security ‘sources’, don’t tend to be reflective when it comes …

Democracy is also about saying ‘no’ (‘pity the councillors’)…

Mick Fealty on September 26, 2011, 12:08 pm

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Thoughful piece from Suzy on the overzealous lobbying of some Norris supporters… Most of the people involved in supporting Norris have not a clue on how the political system works or how party politics operates. Some of them have no manners either. Their views on democracy are all one way traffic too. Democracy is about also about saying no , it’s about the right to make a decision, not making a decision the way you want it made. Pity the …

#Aras11 Round Up: The ‘Let’s Get McGuinness’ Edition…

Mick Fealty on September 26, 2011, 9:48 am

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Áras an Uachtaráin - residence of the Irish President, and soon to be home to Northern Irish bees

First of an occasional series from now until the presidential election, a round up: – In the letters section of the Irish Times, from Brian Bourke in London: It seems to me the candidacy of Martin McGuinness is polarising the nation. On the one side we have blind optimism that he may actually stand a chance of being elected. On the other there is blind fear that he might actually stand a chance of being elected. – If this campaign …

#aras11: If I am wrong about my own people, then so be it.

John Ó Néill on September 21, 2011, 3:02 pm

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Rather than merely add to the growing fascination with Martin McGuinness on here, I fished this out of The Irish Times archive. The comments below are the main substance of an article entitled “Why Mary McAleese must be stopped: In a reply to his critics, Eoghan Harris sets out his reasons for trying to block Mary McAleese’s campaign for the Presidency” which was published on the 24th October 1997 (in The Irish Times), with the election six days later. I’m not suggesting you should make …

#Aras11: “McGuinness may prove a very compliant ninth President of the Irish Republic”

Mick Fealty on September 20, 2011, 3:27 pm

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Sinn Fein’s audacious move to the south in putting Martin McGuinness’s name into the Presidential ring has several aspects. One, the simplest, it has livened up an election which was looking like the dullest political event on the island since, erm, perhaps the last Assembly election. On the face of it that’s a distinct advantage. It gets Mr McGuinness more face time than any Sinn Fein TD could ever wish for. Defacto, it also means that for now, the story …