Who's for President 2025? Any takers?

They've clearly read the tea-leaves...


Sinn Féin remains nervous about presidential elections following a bruising run for its then MEP Liadh Ní Riada in the 2018 contest. Ms Ní Riada came fourth with a little more than 6 per cent of first-preference votes.

There are anxieties within the party that anything less than an overwhelming win for Ms McDonald could feed a media narrative about a dip in Sinn Féin’s electoral fortunes.
 
While I don't like most politicians, I don't actively dislike them either.

Mary Lou is different, I genuinely actively dislike her to the point I turn off the radio when she comes on, her nasally whining just does my head it.

The only other politicians who had a similar effect is was Ivana bachic and Joan Burton.

Most people I know have a similar distain for Mary Lou, this is across the political spectrum. I don't see her as a conviction politician, never have and never will.
 
While I don't like most politicians, I don't actively dislike them either.

Mary Lou is different, I genuinely actively dislike her to the point I turn off the radio when she comes on, her nasally whining just does my head it.
It’s the didactic slow condensation in her tone that gets me. That and the fact that she’s the figurehead of a Uk based populist party run by people who are anti democratic and hero worship child killers.
The only other politicians who had a similar effect is was Ivana bachic and Joan Burton.
I disagree with the politics of both women but I respect their ability and their commitment to public service.
Most people I know have a similar distain for Mary Lou, this is across the political spectrum. I don't see her as a conviction politician, never have and never will
I believe that she has conviction. I’m just not sure what for.
 
Riverdance did more for the positive promotion of this country than anyone in politics.
No argument from me. But why not one of Bill Whelan, John McColgan, or Moya Doherty, who it seems, collectively are the owners and creators? A revolving Uachtartán with the term set at six years to allow for two years each?
 
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Very interesting. Have you a source for that.
I can't find a link but Thomas Davis, he of the Young Irelander's and founder of The Nation newspaper, was instrumental in the weaponisation of the Irish Language as a cultural tool to create a hostility towards all form of colonialism and so the Anglo-Irish were not really Irish. This despite that fact that his father was a British Army surgeon and his was an Anglican.
The "Dissenters"; free Presbyterians etc, were closer to the Catholics before the 1978 rebellion because they were also subject to the Penal Laws. That changed slowly after 1978 1798 (edit) but even in the 1830's the Presbyterian Home Mission was teaching Catholic kids to read and write through the medium of Irish as a means of proselytization. A basic tenant of Protestantism is that people should have access to the Bible in their own language but Henry the Eight passed laws that religious ceremonies should be conducted in English or, for the Irish Speakers, in Latin. Presbyterian, being dissenters, were against that and used Irish to attempt to convert them and save their souls. The influx of Scots-Gaelic speaking Presbyterian preachers from Scotland after the Jacobite rebellion also influenced the links between Protestant Northern Ireland and the Irish Language.

We see Northern Ireland as the result of pollical acts and plantation for political ends but the primary driver up to 200 years ago was religion.
If you are interested this is a good read.
 
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@Purple Thanks for that it is interesting.

The connection between Protestantism and the Irish language is very strong. Indeed the founder of Conradh na Gaeilge, Douglas Hyde was the son of an Anglican clergyman.

Political unionism and Irish is a little more nuanced. Scots Gaelic speakers with a political loyalty to Britain were certainly among the plantation. However the state's efforts to associate Irish with disloyalty go back at least as far as the Statutes of Kilkenny. This British view that Irish speakers are disloyal is widely accepted among Unionists. All of which makes Linda Ervine's work the more impressive.
 
Political unionism and Irish is a little more nuanced. Scots Gaelic speakers with a political loyalty to Britain were certainly among the plantation.
The ones I'm talking about came later. because they were not English speakers they were associated, possibly incorrectly, with those disloyal to the Crown and fled to Northern Ireland to a planted population which was at that time too small to be sustainable without the support of their Scottish Brethren.

However the state's efforts to associate Irish with disloyalty go back at least as far as the Statutes of Kilkenny.
Yes, but that disloyalty applied to Dissenters as well so Presbyterians were in that basket. Again, it was about religion and the imposition of The Church by Law Established by Henry and them Elisabeth (though Lizzy the First was keen Linguist and took an interest in the Irish Language).
This British view that Irish speakers are disloyal is widely accepted among Unionists. All of which makes Linda Ervine's work the more impressive.
Yes, but my contention is that such a view is mainly due to the weaponization of the Irish language by Nationalists from the 1800's onwards and the appropriation of Nationalism by Catholics after that. In that context the opposition to the Irish Language Act in Northern Ireland is somewhat more understandable, although historically blind. They have in effect accepted the appropriation of their Irishness by a brand of Catholic Nationalism and the reinforcement of the historically incorrect view that they are somehow foreigners in their own land.
 
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