This morning/afternoon.

More as we get it.

SF tables no confidence motion in Fitzgerald (RTÉ)

Previously: In DPP Trouble

Make music?

Free tonight?

Gav writes:

We’re running a FREE event @Anseo [Camden Street, Dublin] tonight at 7pm (Thurs 23rd, CreateSound Social) to support local producers and to help boost some more home-grown electronic music.

For this one we’re graced with the talents of Elaine Mai, Grouse & Dego performing live and giving some demo/tips along the way. All welcome, from bedroom producers, to people just interested in having a gander.

Chat, collaborate, have a mooch… Anyone looking to play or get feedback on their own tracks can bring them along on a USB key and we’ll shtick them on – open mic stylee.

Create Sound Social with Elaine Mai (Facebook)

A Funked Up fixie on Grafton Street, Dublin 2

Funked Up Bike Company  was founded in the Liberties, Dublin 8 in 2010 and specialise in custom made Fixed Gear (Fixies) and Single Speed bikes for the Urban Cyclist.

Funked Up founder Olaf O’Moore writes:

We are taking a stand against the overly hyped and commercialised Black Friday sales.

We have teamed up with the Dublin Simon Community and help them make a difference to the 5,000+ individuals and families who receive their support and services on an annual basis.

If you place an order on Funkedup.com, you will receive a 10% discount and Funked Up will match your 10% discount and donate that amount to the Simon Community on your behalf.

So if you order a bike worth €500, you will receive a €50 discount and the Simon Community will also receive a €50 donation from you.

Funked Up have made it really simple to use, all you have to do to make your donation is enter your preferred promo code on the checkout page… 10-For-Simon or 20-For-Simon

It gets even better, this offer is open from Black Friday 24th November right up until midnight on New Year’s Eve Sunday 31st of December….

In fairness.

Funked Up Fixie (Facebook)

Pic: Stephen Scully

The trailer for this year’s Late Late Toy Show, debuting on RTÉ One tonight.

Gareth Naughton writes:

This year’s trailer goes for a traditional Christmas feel taking inspiration from the classic children’s story The Nutcracker. A young girl settles down to sleep as a festive snow globe twinkles at her bedside.

As she sleeps, the snow globe comes to life with toy soldier – and Late Late Toy Show host – Ryan Tubridy joined by the girl and her friends opening presents and playing in the snow. All to the tune of The Shins’ version of the festive classic Wonderful Christmastime.

The trailer was created by the RTÉ Marketing and Promotions team and features a 5-metre snow globe, miniature snow globes handmade by the production and a group of young actors – and real life friends – from the Empire Dance and Performing Arts Academy in Tallaght.

*converts to Judaism*

The Late Late Toy Show on Friday, December 1 at 9.35pm.

From top: Gerry Adams during his Presidential Address at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis last weekend; Dan Boyle

A Brave New World awaits Sinn Féin Mark Six, the political party which came out of the Hunger Strikes of 1981, inheriting the Sinn Féin franchise as the minority of the minority of the minority of those who had previously laid claim to that title.

Its Moses like leader, the benighted Gerry Adams, having almost led his people to the Promised Land (and having done so five years more quickly than his biblical predecessor), is about to step aside and allow someone else lead his people into Israel (sorry Stormont, sorry government in Dublin).

Making fun of the Dear Leader will probably reawaken the trolls in their hundreds. Let me seek to correct myself. Gerry Adams has been one of the most significant figures of modern Irish politics. He deserves respect and admiration for the way he has led his movement from a fruitless, violent path, towards democratic respectability.

His party is now firmly ensconced as the third force in Ireland. Its mathematical strength may yet bring about a historic realignment in Irish politics.

And yet. The achievement has not been solely his. The Peace Process could never have happened, if it weren’t for John Hume. Without him the initiative would not have gotten off the ground. His reward, in a life now lived in shadows, has been to be minimised and marginalised, especially by the Republican movement.

The role played by Martin McGuinness was equally as important in helping to put, and keep Gerry Adams where he was.

The initiation of the Peace Process with Hume, and the directing and managing of the Republican movement with McGuinness, have been Gerry Adams’ greatest achievements. Achievements for which he should be continually acknowledged.

It is his subsequent role as a political leader that deserves a critique. After the Good Friday Agreement the political growth of Sinn Féin was slow and patchy.

At the 2007 general election the party actually lost a seat. It took the arrival of the International Monetary Fund to the country,and the subsequent election of Pearse Doherty in the Donegal South West by election, for the party to begin its upward trend in support.

Much new support was easily gained through a slavish addiction to the politics of No. Whenever the party nudged towards being more responsible, it found itself going backwards, such as when the Anti Austerity Alliance beat Sinn Féin to the punch over the issue of water charges during the Dublin South West by-election in 2014.

Sinn Féin has been thought to have a glass ceiling on its potential support, as long as Gerry Adams remained its leader. A bright new future awaited the party, as and when Gerry decided it would be time to move on.

This analysis may have been oversold. There are many negatives that attach to Sinn Féin, that exist regardless of who its leader is. A further bee in the bonnet is that Adams may have made this change too late.

This indicates that any bounce the party may expect may not as deep or as long lasting as it hopes for. No Big Bang is likely.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Rollingnews

Meanwhile…

Looking for a political stocking filler?

Dan Boyle’s new book ‘Making Up The Numbers – Smaller Parties and Independents in Irish Politics‘ is being published by the History Press on November 27.

Broadsheet.ie