The Cedar Lounge Revolution

A change in arithmetic ? April 30, 2018

One of the things about the current Confidence and Supply Arrangement between FF and FG is that neither side want’s to be the one that ends it…… and subsequently be blamed for an unnecessary election and suffer the consequences electorally.
After Seán Canney was not reappointed to the Junior Ministerial role, it now appears that he may leave the Independent Alliance.
If he does go, then Dail arithmetic were FF to abstain is getting very very tight. There are 51 FG TD’s. Katherine Zappone,  Denis Naughten, Shane Ross, Boxer Moran, Finian McGrath and John Halligan. Which makes 57

Against that 13 Independents * (including Canney and Lowry), 2 Greens, 2 Social Democrats, 4 Inds4Change, 6 Solidarity PBP, 7 Labour and 23 Sinn Fein which also makes 57.

So the casting vote would go to the Government from Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl.
So it would be worth FFs while goading a few of the Independent members of The Government to see if they break. Have Independents rather than themselves causing an election…… and of course nothing better for FF and FG in an election campaign than to blame Independents for instability !!!

Justified gloom April 30, 2018

http://eureferendum.com/

I love Richard North’s blog – but I laughed out loud last week at some of the images that he had selected – gloomy, depressing, images of matters getting worse (example A here). I have to wonder, given the sheer weight of what is happening, at what point does he run out exhaust the supply available on the internet of such imagery?

FF and the aftermath of the 8th… April 30, 2018

The Phoenix recently pointed to the fact that little is being said about how the 8th will impact on FG and FF if it is lost, and in particular how the leaders of those parties will fare. I tend to the view that FF might be in greater trouble. The Phoenix makes much M. Martin’s ‘obsessively seeking the Holy Grail that is the floating urban, liberal vote’, but in truth given a good portion of the FF vote has decamped to the more socially liberal SF it is difficult to see what Martin can do.

A friend in SF suggested to me a month or two back that Martin is thinking not just of the referendum but of the situation five, ten and fifteen years down the line when that ‘larger section of the FF support base that sees the party as the custodian of family values’ as the Phoenix puts it may well be a rather smaller cohort (and just by the by to judge by polling figures Martin has lost no support at all for allowing his flock to go every which way).

By the way, I have to wonder about this part of a particular line in the Phoenix…

Martin’s determination to modernnise his party has led him to relinquish FF’s core principles on family values.

But what principles are they? I can’t think of a single issue that Martin has relinquished in respect of same, bar forcing all in FF to follow a single line on abortion, which is an absolutely impossibility given that a good half of the Dáil contingent are now pro-choice. Perhaps others can help.

Though, in fairness, I think this, a continuation of the same line, is just about spot on…

…while his efforts to stave off SF have seen him take up anti-national positions on the north while Vlad comes over as a reborn Michael Collins.

And interestingly the Phoenix notes that Martin Mansergh has been criticising Martin for being anti-republican in its determination to attack SF using Brexit as the means.

Elections and the 8th April 30, 2018

Pat Leahy in the IT suggests that an election, even on foot of a successful referendum outcome, might scupper legislation which would be brought in, all things being equal in the Autumn. He even suggests that some TDs might line up on a platform of not supporting legislation.

The Dáil will return in mid-September and pass a budget in mid-October. After that, with the confidence-and-supply agreement expired, we are in election territory. In those circumstances, the chances of abortion legislation getting through the Dáil are highly uncertain, to say the least.

You don’t have to be a student of politics to realise that this raises the prospect of a general election in which candidates’ attitudes to abortion and especially the proposals to introduce abortion on request up to 12 weeks will become an important question.

And;

…there are anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand of such hardline anti-abortion votes in every constituency, depending on where it is. So where do they go? There may well be single-issue, pro-life candidates, but they won’t be elected. Instead, I expect the votes are likely to transfer to the most pro-life Fianna Fáil candidate in the constituency – and there are plenty of them – but only once cast-iron assurances to vote against the abortion legislation were supplied. How ironic if these anti-abortion votes were to deliver an electoral boost for Michéal Martin.

And yet, and yet. Again the point mentioned elsewhere today comes into play. With a good chunk of FF support gone to SF, FF isn’t quite what it used to be, even with more TDs. And it would not be difficult to cobble together a (presumably) FG led coalition of like minds, who along with the far from insignificant cohort of FF TDs who are pro-choice (words many of us never thought to write) would be able to draft the necessary legislation.

Which isn’t to say it would be easy, but as Leahy himself notes, even if the margin of victory is something in the 55/45 range that would still be the express will of the people.

Left Archive: Communist Comment, Irish Communist Organisation, 1970 April 30, 2018

To download the above please click on the following link. communist-comment-ico-1970.pdf

Please click here to go the Left Archive.

Many thanks to the person who forwarded this to the Archive.

This is a very interesting document dating from 1970 and the Irish Communist Organisation (the precursor to BICO). A number of issues are addressed, ‘Too Many Unions?’, ‘Anti-Partitionism’, ‘Socialism ‘Comes in From the Cold’’ and Stormont. But the front page piece is on ‘Recent Riots in the North’.

The ICO did not support these riots, in the sense that it did not involve itself physically in furthering them (and no other sense is worth considering). In failing to support these struggles the ICO is not distinguished from many other organisations claiming to be socialist. In stating clearly that it did not support such struggles the ICO is distinguished from all other socialist bodies.

And it continues:

In the current issue of the trotskyist ‘Workers Republic’ for example, the ICO is described as pro-imperialist mainly because it does not give phrase-mongering ‘support’ to these struggles… but neither the L.W.R. nor any other trostskyist body has participated physically in these riots.

It suggests that:

When the ICO was of the opinion there was a progressive element in the military conflict in Belfast – in the defence of the Falls in Augsut 1969 – it did not issue incitements to resistance from afar. It participated physically in the struggle in a very definite manne, and in the critical days made a very substantial contribution to this defence.

There’s much more including a piece on ‘Why would Stormont go?’.

Rudd gone… April 29, 2018

And rightly so. But who next? And what impacts on Brexit?

Recycling bicycles in Dublin, and the rest of the state? April 29, 2018

Anyone happen to use this facility or similar?

All changed utterly? April 29, 2018

You wouldn’t think it reading this:

The Irish revolution’s impact has been grossly exaggerated
Contrary to popular belief, not all changed, changed utterly in the period 1912-1923

But there’s a a good overview here in the IT of the pre- and post-revolutionary theory by Felix M Larkin (former academic director of the Parnell Summer School) and his basic point that much of that which shaped the period prior to independence survived into the independence period, but I wonder if it is built on a misapprehension, as comments BTL ask, Larkin’s thesis that:

Some elements of the Irish revolution of 1912-1923 – for instance, the participation of the citizen army in the Easter Rising and the adoption of the democratic programme by the first Dáil in 1919 – had seemed to indicate that there would be a social dimension to the revolution, but it was not to be. For many (and perhaps for Yeats too), that compromised the independence won with so much blood and sacrifice.
However, focusing on the absence of a social revolution in tandem with the political one is to miss an important point. There had been a social revolution in Ireland – though it occurred before the political revolution. The revolution of 1912-1923 was the end of a process of change in Ireland, not the beginning

But I wonder how many people actually do believe that all changed utterly? It’s important, I think, not to elide the above analysis which has much to recommend it with the John Bruton approach of arguing that all was well and Home Rule was being implemented and 1916 was a terrible and unnecessary irruption. Because I think Larkin’s thesis much more robust. Or perhaps it was just overly energetic sub-editors at the IT who offered that first headline and subheading.

And there’s a further point which is that – of course the independence struggle didn’t result in a complete rupture with that which had gone before. Short of some form of ideological revolution quite at odds with the actual forces at play that was almost certainly never going to happen (and in respect of cultural aspects, such as a genuine reGaelicisation was a project beyond the ability of the state in Ireland to impose then, or after). But that said there was a rupture, the British didn’t contest the struggle on a whim and it had implications both for the island and further afield that continue to reverberate into this very decade and beyond. It’s not all about Brexit, but as a case study in how the events of a 100 years ago have a tenacious power even today consider how partition itself is shaping negotiations between the EU and the UK.

Wristwatch redux April 29, 2018

Was in Smiggle, the shop for youngsters, recently and was amazed to see in amongst all the plastic candy flavoured pens and pencils, elaborate plastic pencil cases, crazy plastic ‘accessories’ for writing with (you see a pattern emerging here, it’s like a stationery shop for My Little Ponies – though in fairness one slogan they use is ‘swap the screen – unplug from the digital’…) watches. Wrist watches no less. And not so pricey although again covered with plastic bits and pieces that you can add or remove like a sort of charm bracelet. Sort of.

Which reminded me of my first watch – or not. Because in Kilbarrack in the mid-1970s these, or something very close to them, were all the rage as we shivered in the yard of the National School there. I don’t recall a seconds hand and I think it as smaller…

Sunday and the Week’s Media Stupid Statements… April 29, 2018

We have Stephen Collins, in the week when the Independent Alliance sought to see if one of its members was staying onside with the government, writing:

Another significant factor is that the internal cohesion of the Government itself is coming under increasing strain and the continued participation of the Independent Alliance becoming more doubtful by the day.

There’s this:

An anti-abortion group has criticised alleged inconsistencies in the story of a Co Wexford woman who says she was told she could not terminate an unplanned pregnancy despite believing it could kill her.

…

In a tweet, Mr McGuirk said: “Nobody has accused Claire Malone of lying. We have accused [The Irish Times] of not reporting her story fully, when she wrote about it contemporaneously while she was pregnant.”

Except, except, it’s hard to see it being at odds with what is actually reported.

Finally in a different category all its own, in the paper of record, an interview with a ‘specialist’ in ‘astrocartography’ (a “form” of “astrology” that “helps people choose where to live”) now relocated to the US.

How did your move to Boston come about?
After two years in Italy, I reluctantly returned to Ireland to continue my astrology studying and to develop and extend my client base there, which included starting to teach astrology.

And this is priceless…

In January 2017, I learned of Norwegian airline’s proposed new low cost routes between Ireland and the US, consulted my own astrologer and saw that Mars (which rules passion, drive and inspired action) was strong in my chart in Boston.
So I booked my flight in June 2017, and put it out there in a Boston women’s Facebook group that I was looking for a holistic shop to work out of. I got several replies, contacted ZuZus Healing Arts Shop outside of Boston, who were happy to have me work from their shop one day a week.