The wondrous adventures of Sinn Fein (part 3) Mod Notes and Threadbanned List in OP

If I remember correctly IRA/SF also quickly put a stop to female IRA operatives acting as honeytraps - is that the equality you are on about? Because basically during the troubles SF piggy backed on the Civil Rights organsations and have since rewrote history to suit a Republican narrative.

Many of the 'new vote' in the ROI who vote for SF do have poor historical knowledge of SF - SF know it. You know it and I know it.

It is why SF target them as potential votes. It is how the 'abú database' works. Go for the hotspots - untapped potential votes. Anyone working class and in their 20's with limited historical knowledge / or do not care about SF's past are easy pickings for SF. Granted there are exceptions. But it no coincidence that

IMO it is not FG or FF that has left the gap politically. But a weak centre left - Labour in Ireland has collapsed. SF can target the working class areas - those who buy into giveaway promises and the narrative of sticking it to 'the establishment'.

It is no coincidence that SF did really well in the working class areas in Dublin Bay North for example - Edenmore etc

It is no coincidence that A O'Snodaigh did really well in - Dublin South Central - which contains working class areas of Ballyfermot, Inchicore, Crumlin and Kimmage

It is no coincidence that SF does NOT have a TD in Dun Laoghaire - O'Brion ran there in 2007 and was unsuccessful (despite being from Cabinteely) - he was instead parachuted in Dublin Mid West after that - which contains Clondalkin / Lucan - working class areas.

So it seems to me that the SF rise seems to be a very select one. Due to populist promises and an anti-establishment spin. (Despite SF been the establishment in Stormont now for a few decades.

For instance the SF spin machine did a number on Labour's Joan Burton - painting her as the 'establishment'. Despite the fact she was born in Stoneybatter and grew up in Inchicore! Yet the SF leader is from the Leafy suburb of Rathgar in Dublin

(Incidentally MLMCD did not run in the Rathgar constituency - Dublin Bay South - which says a lot. MLMD instead runs in the Dublin central constituency - containing working class areas of Ballybough - Cabra etc)

What did SF target Burton? Because she had the temerity to claim SF were rewriting and hijacking the history of the country. SF did not like this so set out on a long and sustained political attack on Burton.

To me SF does not have broad appeal that it would need to get an overall majority in the Dail. They can only attract a certain type of voter in Dublin for example - the working class. And within that cohort the young naive voter or 'new voter' that is how I see it.

By the way I don't agree that violence was necessary that is a SF myth to glorify failure. The Provos failed militarily. Not once inch of territory was gained. The nationalist population having more babies than the Unionists - will be the real key to any UI.

It is the big corporations?? It is FDI that has made the country - Google basing themselves in Ireland - tax cuts for the film industry etc. Massive successes. Putting Ireland on the map globally. SF are not able to think global IMO. They only think with a national mindset IMO.

Why has SF only got a very select appeal?

Why is it not showing in the constituencies then? No SF TD's in middle class Dublin. All the ballot boxes seem to point to working class areas from the 2020 GE if I remember correctly. But the article does back up half of my point on naive voters - u35's short memories.

I still don't think SF have broad enough support the above article is an opinion poll.

It might be worth your while checking up on the facts of Dublin Bay South (which includes quite a few leafy suburbs like Rathgar, Ranelagh, Rathmines, Sandymount, Terenure) actually has a SF TD (Chris Andrews), who took the second seat in the last general election after the Greens and before FG/FF. And since the bye-election, FG does not have a seat in these leafy suburbs - that Murphy's seat was won by Labour (Ivana Bacik).

I'd question the, 'SF aren't pulling votes from FF/FG, they've just hoovered up the Labour voters' narrative you've posited, GormDubhGorm.

While certainly partially true, it is difficult to see how SF could be polling at ~35% by hoovering up the votes of a party who haven't had above 20% of first preference votes since 1922, who haven't been in double figures since 2011.

The argument could be quite strong for the 2011 to 2016 period, where Labour dropped 13% and SF gained 4%, but it would seem that the majority of that Labour vote went elsewhere in 2016.....and Labour just haven't had the numbers to explain SF's increases since then.

As for FF and FG, in that time they've gone from a 2011 combined share of first preference votes of 53.5% to 43.1% in 2020, the drops correlating more strongly with the SF rise, at least during the 2016 (49.8%) to 2020 period.

From the 2020 election to current polling, FF/FG went from a combined 43.1% to a currently projected ~40%, while SF have gone from 24.5% to currently projected at ~35%, so it would appear that the most recent tranche of people intending to vote SF aren't coming so much from FF/FG, but rather from a mixture of places including the Greens, who are suffering from the usual junior government partner haemorrhage of voters.

I suppose my long drawn out point is that it is a bit of an ostrich-esque head in the sand act, combined with an overly simplified take on things to suppose that SF have only hoovered up centre left voters, when in the last 10 years, they've increased their figures from 9.9% to currently polling at 35%, during which time FF/FG have gone from a combined vote of 53.5% to currently polling at 40%.

SF and the PIRA did nothing to help anyone.

Gerry Adams has admitted that the PIRA moved rapists and child abusers on to other jurisdictions rather than have them brought to justice. They also terrorised their own community with punishment beatings and kneecapping. Some equality and democracy that they brought to the North.

Anybody who thinks otherwise is being fooled by republican propaganda.

Among the many other things we will never know B.

something going on there for sure, most of the usual SF motormouths haven’t been heard of over the last two weeks.

Poor Lynn might struggle for her third big wedge job.

My guess is they are scouring the country for ‘name ‘ candidates.

Absolutely not. If a peaceful march, demonstration or protest is officially banned for political reasons, such a ban should be ignored. If that ban is then enforced with violence by state actors, which subsequently goes unpunished, that state is no longer legitimate and anybody wearing its uniform is, like it or not, an agent of a rogue state and a legitimate target in the (justified) violent uprising that follows.

Prohibiting peaceful protest and enforcing that prohibition with violent force is simply unacceptable, and if it happens, it is entirely justified for t he protesters to respond in kind with violence of their own. That is the only way in which tyrants can be prevented from taking and maintaining power.

Or, to take a rather famous film quote, “people should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people”.

To those who suggest that the RUC was not an arm of an oppressive state, have any of you seen the incredibly famous video from the NICRA march in which a protester demands that the police cease their attacks, finishing by saying “God save us” and being immediately decked with a baton? That, to me, is the moment at which anyone with a shred of human decency should have resigned from the RUC in disgust on the insistence that those responsible be prosecuted for assault. And anyone who failed to do so chose to wear the uniform of that, from that moment onwards, had declared itself a rogue paramilitary power in support of an illegitimate government.

Why are they so pro USA and France etc? What exactly do you want Sinn Féin to do about it?