If in Dowd

Tiocfaidh ár thaw. Sinn Fein have gone from having 159 local councillors elected in the 2014 local elections to 81 in the last weekend's election. What has happened? Are Sinn Fein a one-trick pony, only good at blowing the whistle when the government steps out of line? Are they a party which the electorate would trust to run the country? These are the questions being repeated ad nauseum by commentators trying to make sense of the party's seemingly calamitous defeat. I even heard one presenter suggest that Mary Lou, only wearing the Sinn Fein captain's jersey a wet week, should step down. Really I think people are missing the point here. Sinn Fein entered the 2014 local elections on a simple mandate: anti-austerity and, principally, anti-water charges. They were, for all intents and purposes, running on a single-issue ticket. At a time when it seemed like there were no benefits left to cut or taxes left to increase by the Fine Gael-Labour coalition, people voted with t...

Single-issue politics has never really taken off in Ireland, but now an opportunity presents itself on the left for this to change. We've had the Green Party for the past 30 years or so, which has put forward an attractive mix of cycling, vegetarianism and business-friendly policies, although getting into bed with Fianna Fail in the short-lived 2007 coalition which presided over Ireland's second famine (this time, economic). They have strong enough convictions on climate to appeal to the eco warriors but not enough hair dye to turn off the middle class voters in the suburbs. It's a happy medium. Things are looking up, with today's Sunday Business Post poll is showing their support surging to 7%. The Greens can attribute this bounce back to perhaps the youngest and oldest environmental activists we have - Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough - who are converting the masses to their cause.  I think the Greens will only see their support head in one direction, given tha...