Séighin Ó Ceallaigh

  With the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Green Party coalition now entering its third year of a maximum five-year term, many are of the opinion that the trio will ride out the rather undesirable polling figures and wait until the last possible moment to call another general election. Another common opinion is that an election will be called in the second half of 2024, how late in that half dependent on the results of the European and Local elections in May of that year. Both valid points, particularly the latter; a bumper budget in October, semi-decent canvassing weather, and pre-empting the inevitable winter healthcare crisis, all make for a workable scenario for the government parties. However, strategically speaking, taking those points and applying them to October 2023 may make more sense for Martin, Varadkar, and Ryan, should they be willing to gamble their final year of the term for the prospects of another five-year stint running Leinster House. Despite current polling having ...

  Elitism Prevails   In 2013 the people of Ireland voted to retain our second house of democracy, Seanad Éireann; but it was a narrow victory and was predicated by a general understanding that the Irish electorate wanted to see this pathetic resemblance of democracy to be seriously reformed. Nine years later, that elitism that was promised to be rid from our flawed democracy is still thriving. Next month, March 2022, we will see a by-election for a Seanad seat that was vacated by the Labour Party’s Ivana Bacik when she was elected to the only truly democratic house in the state, Dáil Éireann. But despite an electorate in the millions, only some 60,000 people will be granted the privilege of voting; graduates from Trinity College Dublin, an institute with a deep history of elitism and sectarianism. Of the sixty seats in the Seanad, graduates of TCD have the privilege of voting for three of those Seanadóirí, and the combined institutes that form the National Universities...

  DUP First Minister Paul Givan has announced his upcoming resignation as FM, resulting in the automatic resignation of his Sinn Féin counterpart, Michelle O'Neill, and bringing forward the prospect of an early election. It appears to be a co-ordinated and meticulously planned attempt to derail ongoing Brexit negotiations, which could see a permanent customs border in the Irish Sea. Firstly, DUP Minister for Agriculture, Edwin Poots, who himself is desperately trying to save his political career after failing to gain the party nomination in South Down for the next election, issued an order for checks to end on goods coming from Britain. It was a move with little substance, and wouldn’t take much of a legal challenge for it to be overruled. But the DUP didn’t hang around on this issue, and almost immediately used it as an excuse to trigger the collapse of the Northern Assembly, a last-ditch attempt to save the DUP, who are being closely chased by two other unionist parties in th...

They say a rising tide lifts all boats, and this may be a saying that will apply to minimum unit pricing in the near future. Minimum unit pricing will mean that you'll be hard pushed to find a can of beer for less than €2, and a bottle of spirits for less than €25, based on their percentages of alcohol. Even when buying bulk offers, the price won't dip much below the mentioned prices. Already, just days after the introduction of MUP, prices are exceeding the mandatory minimum, unsurprisingly. While in a supermarket doing some shopping, I took a detour into the segregated alcohol section, only to find 6,8, and 12 packs quite a bit above the MUP. The only value I found, and I use that term lightly, was with full slabs and boxes of 20 bottles. Then I took a turn into the spirits section, cheaper own brands had disappeared, and as a regular whiskey drinker, I noticed that the prices had risen sharply over the past week. A bottle of my beloved Jameson now just shy of €30...

It was an honour to don the Limerick Mayoral chains in 2015 for Limerick Council's inaugural Oíche Gaeilge, which I had established during my first year on the Council to mark Seachtain na Gaeilge. I was acting as Deputy Mayor for this event, and once more during my council term, at the opening of the new facility for the Irish Wheelchair Association. While I enjoyed the experiences, I would much rather see a Mayor and Deputy Mayor elected by the people of Limerick; but as I stated on national radio this week, I wouldn't be surprised if the people of Limerick are left waiting until 2024 before they can cast their vote. The details of what role the new Mayor of Limerick will play in terms of the Council dynamic, and what powers they will have, are yet to be finalised. We don't know about election spending, if there will be a directly elected Deputy Mayor, and how the Mayor will work with the CEO, a position that would surely become redundant after the election, b...

  Falling asleep in the middle of an international climate conference, representing a country with a lot to do when it comes to tackling emissions, may not have been the worst part of ‘Sleepy Joe’ Biden’s week. It was a name that gained traction during the 2020 Presidential Election, discrediting him as an old man who wouldn’t be up to the job. It was a tactic successfully used by former president Trump in 2016, when he accused Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton of not having the ‘stamina’ to be President of the United States. Though he used personalised attacks unsuccessfully in 2020, this one seems to be somewhat true of Sleepy Joe, who dozed off with his arms crossed mid-conference; and let’s not forget falling up the stairs along with his numerous ‘gaffs’. But it the nightmare for Sleepy Joe was not falling asleep, but what happened in a pretty blue state, close to his homestate of Delaware (it’s no longer Pennsylvania since he won the election). In a state where he d...

  BOOK REVIEW : ANIMAL FARM   There is no doubt that George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm will divide opinions depending on what side of the political spectrum that you stand on, and your understanding of late imperial and early soviet Russian history. I tried to put the historical reflection to the back of my mind while reading this book, and as a historian it was rather difficult. Some of the analogies were downright wrong, many were open to interpretation, and some were fair. What I gathered about the author from this read was that he was a diehard Trotskyist, eulogising the assassinated liberal-left ideologist in the form of Snowball the pig, and Communist leader Vladimir Lenin in the form of Major the pig; while vilifying Josef Stalin in his depiction as tyrant pig Napoleon. While the pigs represent Soviet leadership, the dogs represent the Soviet Army and Police, and the other animals the general workers of the USSR. I would argue that more time is spent vilify...