Presidential Election 2025

You seem to know a lot aloabout Cavan Monaghan. Just curious. Do you know anything about the sectarianism that HH complained of? There seem to be no details in the public realm.

HH is very popular in Cavan / Monaghan. She wouldn't have received sectarian abuse in those counties before AFAIK.

As an aside, both counties have a high % of protestants in them. FG would typically get the protestant vote.

It isnt just the Protestant vote though. Cavan about 4000 members of the Church of Ireland in the 2022 census. Monaghan is about 3% Church of Ireland and 3% Presbyterian. 17% in Cavan-Monaghan are non Catholic but only about half of that is Protestant. I think she won it mostly because she was a minister and TD there. Shes a Presbyterian.

“Martin is safe until his term as Taoiseach is over. The only heave that will come is if after that he says he intends leading them into the next general election imo”

He would be mad to even consider leading into next election- a 2027 handover would give time for the new leader to make enough of a positive impact without being seen as the cause of whatever problems exist coming up to the next election- it would also make FG look a little stale and tired .

I think MM will survive this current upheaval - I’m not sure anyone wants to become the new leader via a leadership challenge - it’s always a better option if the current leader steps down somewhat voluntarily -

MM has been leader for too long anyway and he knows his time is coming to an end - the “control” and “not listening” accusations flying around , directed at his leadership style, are very similar to what happened to Margaret Thatcher - she stopped listening to pretty much everyone including trusted advisers who were in fairness giving good advice in the main -having watched the excellent BBC documentary (A very British revolution) again recently, there are parallels here in terms of how she behaved in her final term and how MM is apparently behaving now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005br9

What campaign was launched against her 'there'?
Humphreys was always popular here and I have said before she attracted a vote that cut across party's. She had many who voted for her who would never ordinarily have voted FG.

That vote held.

You for instance on here pointed out her village background and ethnic population for instance. The fact that her village had an English only sign post and the fact that her area would sit just as well across the border.

I seen lots of stuff on social media, that I'm not going to link or put up here, but clearly racist and indeed malicious.

The point I was making as to where I am in the conversation is the fact that SF must be wondering how a border constituency, a SF stronghold really and with two sitting TDs, one of them being touted as a potential leader, bucked the national trend and Humphreys won it well. Surely SF must be wondering why Connollys campaign gained so much less traction here than elsewhere.

You for instance on here pointed out her village background and ethnic population for instance. The fact that her village had an English only sign post and the fact that her area would sit just as well across the border.

I seen lots of stuff on social media, that I'm not going to link or put up here, but clearly racist and indeed malicious.

There is nothing racist about asking someone why her home village was so openly breaking the law around dual language signs when the candidate was extolling the importance of the language to them. It might be an inconvenient question but there is nothing racist or malicious about it. All religion persuasions and none here are expected to observe the laws of the land. Offhand I can think of multiple TD's and Ministers asked about their local areas and homeplaces and indeed Humphreys has been scrutinised before for other anomalies in her home constituency.

SF will know as well as anyone that Humphreys was hugely popular personally here and that Cavan/Monaghan (look to previous referendums) is not a 'left stronghold' on social issues.

Official place names must be displayed in Irish and English by law, defined Gaeltacht areas are exempted.

I thought it was?

The threshold is a 25% vote share so they lost out there

Fine Gael a little bit luckier

It’s 12.5% as I read if spoiled were a candidate they would have recouped their expenses

Nobody said she was. What was simply being asked was what was her opinion of it.

Well in that case, any questioning of candidates can be seen as attempting to smear them.

My question was clearly defined in the context of her professed love and value of the Irish language.

*Most ridiculous aspect of the whole campaign was the emergence of this 'out of bounds' category, lest you offend some sensibilities.