Monthly Archives: February 2011

Fianna Fail
Fine Gael
Labour
Green Party
Sinn Fein

Hat’s off to to the English department of Columba’s College in Whitechurch, Dublin 16. They’ve compiled a bunch of word clouds using text from the main parties’ election manifestos. Notice the lack of prominence given over to the party’s name in Fianna Fail’s wordle thingy.

What the hell is a wordle?

SCC English Dept.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin today blamed wider society for a “lazy” consensus over how the country was run during recent years.

Insisting Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern were not culpable either, he defended his right to call for radical political reform as he prepared to leave government after 14 years.

Mr Martin denounced as “ridiculous” the way Dáil business is carried out and said the current system of appointing TDs to the Cabinet was not in the interest of the country.

But he suggested he was not in a position to make any changes to how the Oireachtas worked while a senior Cabinet member for more than decade.

“As a new party political leader I’m fully entitled to bring forward radical political reform proposals,” he said.

“As a leader you are in a different position than as a member of a frontbench or a Cabinet.”

The Fianna Fáil leader said there was a wider consensus in society that the economy was going well and nobody challenged how things were being done.

So, to recap. We all partied. We were too lazy. We are where we are.

Breaking News

Fintan O’Toole’s blistering review of God of Carnage (above, starring Owen Roe, Donna Dent, Maura Tierney and Ardal O’Hanlon) at the Gate elicted a equally blistering letter today from a peeved Ardal (highlights below). We haven’t seen the play and we still haven’t forgiven Fintan for stalling his new political party because he couldn’t find a childminder, As such we will leave this without comment.

“It makes one despair that an esteemed critic and intellectual such as Mr O’Toole should have such a narrow, prescriptive view of what theatre should be; that he should demonstrate such a fear and mistrust of comedy. Laughing, while it is visceral and uncomfortable for the puritan, is not necessarily vulgar.

One would assume that objectivity and a sense of humour are vital to a role as important as the arbiter of taste in Irish cultural life.

What struck me, reading his latest piece of hyperbole, is that Mr O’Toole is the “Veronica” of Irish journalism. As the character herself says in the play “I don’t have a sense of humour and I have no intention of acquiring one”.

Ardal O’Hanlon, Irish Times Letters Page

(Photocall Ireland)