Irish Times

[Plodder]

The program for government promised a referendum on extending the vote for presidential elections to overseas citizens. I've heard it as definitely happening in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Now it doesn't look like it will happen at all. No reason given. Won't be done in time for 2025 presidential election. So maybe 2032 then. Bunch of useless fuckers.

Be careful what you wish for. If anyone with a passport can vote, their will be a lot of very conservative US Catholics who qualify. I tend to think that if you're a long term emigrant, you shouldn't have a say in how people who actually live there have to/get to do. And I say that as a born-and bred Dub who hasn't lived in Ireland in nearly 30 years.

[anton pulisov]

The US Catholics are about fourth or fifth gen Irish now and don't qualify for Irish citizenship.

Also, I would argue Irish government policy has shaped my life more than it has people who never had to leave Ireland. So to say I am not affected by how Ireland is run when we have had successive government ministers describing emigration as a "safety valve"... well it just doesn't add up. There's a notion in the Irish media that us emigrants are living it up on Bondi Beach and having a grand time, and it's how the country assauges its guilt. Unfortunately this lie has been told so often that it has become a received truth, and is now used as an argument against restoring the franchise to the Irish overseas.

[Discordant Resonance]

UK political account in failing to understand the Irish system shocker:

https://twitter.com/LeftieStats/status/1698292591798751519

[ursus arctos]

Is the size of the new Dáil already known, or will it be determined closer to the vote?

I am very much with TonTon that such tables and graphics should include both the current and new figures.

[Lang Spoon]

It's known, 14 more seats.

[ursus arctos]

Ta

Anton is 100 percent right about the reactionary US Catholics

It is also worth keeping in mind that many of the most prominent such muppets are converts

[Lang Spoon]

They really had better change the constitution sharpish though. The current very small, shabby yet "historic" chamber can only hold about 10 more on top of that 14 and then it's fecked. Another big population increase in the next census and the wee lambs will be back in the Convention Centre complaining about the quality of the sangwiches. Or they abandon electronic votes and go fully in thrall to their archaic neighbours on more than just stupid sitting hours.

[ursus arctos]

20 - 30,000 is really tiny

The US Constitution has a similar provision, but that was set in the 18th century

The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.

The current average population is around 780,000 per district.

The size of the House was fixed at 435 in 1911 and attempts to enlarge it have never come to anything.

[Discordant Resonance]

Apparently, the Wolfe Tones are post-ironically cool among Gen Zers because those of us who actually grew up during the Troubles uncritically absorbed Free State propaganda about "the struggle".

[George C.]

Ha ha, saw them last year, but way past their best.

Much better 'rebel' bands out there.

[Flynnie]

Ta

Anton is 100 percent right about the reactionary US Catholics

It is also worth keeping in mind that many of the most prominent such muppets are converts

It's hella crazy how Irish-Americans are all right-wing when they mostly live in blue states where the Republican Party is either dying or already dead. Totally wild. You know what they say about Massachusetts, there's only a handful of Irish Democrats, they just happen to hold all the statewide and federal offices.

(also yes, the filtering to vote: eligibility for passport > getting passport > registering to vote > actually wanting to vote > actually voting would lead to the Irish-American vote being in the dozens. Far more likely you'd have pissed off emigrants and we can't have that)

Apparently, the Wolfe Tones are post-ironically cool among Gen Zers because those of us who actually grew up during the Troubles uncritically absorbed Free State propaganda about "the struggle".

The caterwauling about Celtic Symphony has been a boon to the Tones, Boomer media dickheads getting in a tizzy about it is pretty much guaranteed to annoy everybody under 30. People who grew up in a country that was/is richer and better educated than the UK, by the way. And also has had the Belfast Agreement for virtually their whole lives.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I'm for those resident voting and those not not.

[Lang Spoon]

It's hella crazy how Irish-Americans are all right-wing when they mostly live in blue states where the Republican Party is either dying or already dead. Totally wild. You know what they say about Massachusetts, there's only a handful of Irish Democrats, they just happen to hold all the statewide and federal offices.

(also yes, the filtering to vote: eligibility for passport > getting passport > registering to vote > actually wanting to vote > actually voting would lead to the Irish-American vote being in the dozens. Far more likely you'd have pissed off emigrants and we can't have that)




The caterwauling about Celtic Symphony has been a boon to the Tones, Boomer media dickheads getting in a tizzy about it is pretty much guaranteed to annoy everybody under 30. People who grew up in a country that was/is richer and better educated than the UK, by the way. And also has had the Belfast Agreement for virtually their whole lives.

Also people who in the main have very little connection to the six counties at all. They are less likely to have visited the North than they have visited the rest of rUK. They are indeed better educated (though within a ridiculous points centric exam or bust system thats gamed by those rich enough to afford grinds classes) and richer, but that doesn't mean they have any idea about the realities of the North, its history, or the continuing stink of fucking "community activists".

[anton pulisov]

This guy, for example.

https://twitter.com/joeknowsrugby/status/1690300079008010242

[Flynnie]

By being better educated and richer, they have a different relationship to the UK than the previous generation. My wife's nan saw Britain as a place that saved her from penury because there were no jobs in 1950s Ireland. Zoomers are going to the UK, if they're going at all, to fill white collar executive jobs, they're not going to look the other way at absurdities like the DUP criticising Féile attendees for singing Celtic Symphony when DUP voters love singing about being up to their knees in Fenian blood and lighting bonfires with the tricolour on top of it.

[Flynnie]

This guy, for example.

https://twitter.com/joeknowsrugby/status/1690300079008010242

Do RTÉ pay higher salaries than private media in Ireland? Because they seem to act like Tubridy would take his dog and pony show to the UK or America, when nobody else knows who the fuck he is.

[Lang Spoon]

Substantially higher.

[anton pulisov]

Yep, that's traditionally the argument RTE use to defend the high salaries... "they'd leave for the competition otherwise". Whereas most people would be happy enough for them to piss off, and there's plenty of cheaper (and probably better) talent out there willing to do the job. And, as you say, the competition aren't really interested in the likes of Tubridy anyway.

[Lang Spoon]

By being better educated and richer, they have a different relationship to the UK than the previous generation. My wife's nan saw Britain as a place that saved her from penury because there were no jobs in 1950s Ireland. Zoomers are going to the UK, if they're going at all, to fill white collar executive jobs, they're not going to look the other way at absurdities like the DUP criticising Féile attendees for singing Celtic Symphony when DUP voters love singing about being up to their knees in Fenian blood and lighting bonfires with the tricolour on top of it.

Yeah but the thing is, it's folk from Derry I know (who are very much not DUP voters or of that "cultural background") that get most exercised about blissfully ignorant Dubs or whatever spouting forth about The Struggle.

[George C.]

Most Doire people are OK with Dubs tbf, we share a mutual dislike of Tír Eoghain...

[Flynnie]

Yeah but the thing is, it's folk from Derry I know (who are very much not DUP voters or of that "cultural background") that get most exercised about blissfully ignorant Dubs or whatever spouting forth about The Struggle.

Hardly a united front in the Six Counties on that though is there? The whole latest Wolfe Tonian drama was instigated because Féile an Phobail attendees, presumably largely from Northern Ireland, were singing "ooh ah up the RA" en masse.

[anton pulisov]

I only ever heard "Up the Ra" being sung in Glasgow.

[Lang Spoon]

Hardly a united front in the Six Counties on that though is there? The whole latest Wolfe Tonian drama was instigated because Féile an Phobail attendees, presumably largely from Northern Ireland, were singing "ooh ah up the RA" en masse.

Fuckin Leinster rugger we're playing it over the PA the other week, it's a staple in culchie student joints, or at least was 15-20 years ago when Quinn's pub still existed (as was the stand piss drunk to the national anthem closing time weirdness).

also the Irish women's soccer team singing it in the dressing room when they qualified.

[Flynnie]

A band played it at a Fine Gael Christmas party in 2002, which is possibly one of the greatest piss takes of all time.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Yep, that's traditionally the argument RTE use to defend the high salaries... "they'd leave for the competition otherwise". Whereas most people would be happy enough for them to piss off, and there's plenty of cheaper (and probably better) talent out there willing to do the job. And, as you say, the competition aren't really interested in the likes of Tubridy anyway.

Well that actually was a thing (to commercial sector) at one stage, and it got built into contracts, but that period of time was brief, and over long before the end of the celtic tiger. However it clung on like the various allowances that had accumulated to people in the irish railway system, that had accumulated over a century and a half.

One of the obvious things that you see over the summer is that there are plenty of replacements out there who are at least as good as some of these lads. Derbhail mcdonald is a thousand times bettrr than that cunt brendan o'connor, colm o'mongain represented an enormous improvement on Joe duffy on liveline.

But it's tricky to know what to think about what these people are paid. Just how much should you pay someone to present the late late show, particularly when jt makes rte so much ad money. I do know that if you add up all the money paid to the top ten earners at rte, it adds up to less than 1% of the stations turnover. I can't help feeling uneasy about the concentrated amount of attention that is focused on such a small amount of money in the general scheme of things.