Presidential Election 2025

Only one candidate in court for something she said.

And when they had to ring the German Ambassador for something she said he didn't even remark on the Nazi parallel we were all told here she was making.

If a foreign government thinks she is advocating or voicing a 'policy', not hard to tell them she isn't.

Jeepers, I wouldn't have thought that. GAA in all of the country is big regardless of what others might say. Sean Kelly was President of the GAA in one of its high profile votes, and was all over the media both written and TV/Radio for years. I'd have thought he would have been a shoe in if he was the candidate instead of Heather, but if FF's runner was Kelleher v Kelly and Connolly then there would have been some battle and Connolly wouldn't have got a smell of the Áras.

What?

CC is not a government shill and that’s all HH is. The dirty tactics of smear and fear was absolute desperation by the government. Iconically out of fear! A shameful campaign, but at least the mask has fallen some more.

That's an EXTREMELY alarmist position. Diplomacy goes on behind he scenes between members of the diplomatic corps and line ministers usually, not the president.

Also Ireland's position on things like NATO is long established and is what it is, and has significant public support, despite the changes in Europe's security situation vis a vis Russia - at most the government has been taking a pragmatic, case by case kind of approach to a lot of these things.

We're certainly never going to be seen like Hungary - they're literally a wandering down the road of anti-democratic authoritarianism, and there's literally no possibility of that here at all. The critique of our defence positions are usually seen more in the sense of being overly 'hippy dippy', very over optimistic, idealistic and perhaps lacking much of a grasp of the reality of what other countries, particularly further east in the EU actually face. Other than a few mad Tories, there's no real focus on Ireland at all, but when it is brought up, it's more so that we're off on the island off in western fringes living in a very geographically lucky position. There's probably more of a sense of Ireland lacking solidarity and grasp of reality than anything hostile. We're certainly not seen as pro-Russian, if anything we're usually seen as far too close to the US and even the UK by some of our EU allies, but not in a military kind of way, more economically and culturally.

And that would be the fault of the two major parties who have been in power alternatively and together since the formation of the state.

I don't want to derail the thread - but being seen as naive does not equate to being seen like Hungary - what we've largely done is assume the most optimistic outcomes of all potential scenarios and have done very little to bolster our own neutral defences. None of that is going to really be impacted negatively or positively by the president. It is what it is and is reflective of Irish public opinion on the topic too.

Making noise has most of our naval fleet tied up in Haulbowline.

That's quite a naive view. A vast array of undersea Data cables lie completely unprotected off our West Coast and have been regularly and clandestinely mapped and surveyed by Russian Submarines, undersea ROV's and marine Signals Intelligence gathering ships from the Russian Navy.

Only a few months ago, a notorious Russian "Oceanic Survey Vessel", the Yantar, decided to stop engines and loiter over the exact spot where these Data Cables run towards their landfall position on the coast, and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it.

A report on our vulnerability last year hypothesised that Russia may have pre-positioned the means to cut the cables should they deem it necessarily depending on how much pressure they are under.

Meanwhile, Russian aircraft regularly fly down our west coast with their transponders off, leaving it to the RAF to come and chase them away.