Showing posts with label General Election 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General Election 2011. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Twitter's Election Highlights

Over the past few days, I've been asking people on twitter about what some of their personal highlights on General Election 2011 were. I've gotten some interesting and varied responses, from people who were both heaving involved in the election, to those who had a passing interest. This is how they responded.

David Gormley: "Has to be the suspense around Ivana Bacik in DL. If the recount doesn't go her way tomorrow, it'll be a travesty."


Nigel Dugdale: "probably today with O'Dea's comments on Power" Broadsheet


Christine Bohan: "Strong campaigns by lots of new candidates. Not much else tbh. Rather dismal overall."


John Anthony Highland: "the total and absolute feeling of freedom I am feeling, If I am elected, I am empowered to fight for my country and my people, enabled to persue what i feel are tangible workable proposals.  If not elected my heart and soul are completely free of whatever happens here, as I tried, and put my heart and ideas forward! Either way, I am a winner."


Shane O'Callaghan: 'Martin Heydon's video. It's crazy." video


Rachael Power: "My highlight would have been being able to vote. Most of my Erasmus friends were shocked when I said I couldnt vote from abroad."


Dave Devery: "My election highlight was [the video 'Enda Kenny's Earpiece'].


Margaret Smith: " I don't know if i could call voting a highlight - more depressing because I didn't like any of the candidates, chose least worst"


Donal Merrick: "Twitter during the 5-way debate on RTE and also the last debate, but Twitter mainly, everyone making jokes about what the leaders were saying."


Sharon Whelton: "to be honest I think whatever party will be in power after this election, it wont make much of a difference in the short term. A serious amount of work will have to be done in order to sort our country out, and its going to take quite some time."


Laura Daly: "The lack of any sort of discussion about social policy, the rise of social media & how the parties used it or not."


Aoife Breen: "my highlight (lowlight, rather) is how disenfranchised I feel and how utter parochial Irish politics is."


What was your highlight of General Election 2011?


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Thursday, February 24, 2011

The most popular candidate?


Sinn Fein Leader, Gerry Adams is the most popular candidate on thejournal.ie’s General Election section, according to the website’s visitors., but is also ranked the second most unpopular The website contains a full list of candidates and allows visitors to learn more about each candidate and to either ‘like’ them or ‘unlike’ them. Below are top five most popular and most unpopular, with Mr Adams ranking in both.






















Blogged with permission from thejournal.ie


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Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The most popular political party on Facebook is...

With three days to go until Election Day, it’s time to see which party has the most Facebook fans.

Although Fine Gael are ahead in the polls, if it were all about social media, Labour would clinch it.


2,618
4,007
4,949
425
1,064


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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Campaign songs. Are they a bad idea?

At this stage, people have already heard some of our political candidates' attempts at campaign songs. We have Mannix Flynn and his Dublin rap song, but since then I've come across these two beauties. Independent candidate for Limerick, John Dillon has one, while Maman Poulet discovered Dublin South Central candidate, Michael Conaghan, was ripping off the Rubberbandits' hit 'Horse Outside'.



Rest Outside - Michael Conaghan by Maman Poulet



Although most of the campaign songs haven't been met well, especially in Conaghan's case, could they do serious damage to a campaign? Once a dodgy tune comes into the equation, does policy and enthusiasm go out the window?
Perhaps candidates would have been better off to adopt the American style of campaign song and use an already popular song, with the artist's consent, of course.


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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Paul Gogarty no fan of FF voters



I wonder did he ever live up to his twitter oath of not saying anything controversial.
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Thursday, February 10, 2011

Rappin' Mannix Flynn


I'm not sure what came over Independent Dublin candidate, Mannix Flynn. In some attempt to get down with the kids, Flynn performs a little rap on Balcony TV to entice his constituents to give him their number one vote. Flynn, who does come across as a genuinely lovely and hard working man, his rap will definitely meet so disapproving clucks.


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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Contribution to Irish Election


I contributed to a piece in Irish Election along with Cian O’Flaherty, John Handelaar, David Cochrane, Alexia Golez, Suzy Byrne and Christine Bohan. I wrote on Enda Kenny's speech while Gilmore and Martin debated on TV3. You can read it here.


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Monday, January 24, 2011

The most popular TD on facebook is...



Independent North Tipperary TD, Michael Lowry is the most popular TD on facebook, with Sinn Fein's Pearse Doherty in 2nd place and Fianna Fail's Micheal Martin in third. At the time of blogging, Lowry has 5,001 facebook friends, while Dohery has 4,267 and Martin has 4,070.
The least popular TD's on facebook are Michael Finneran, Sean Fleming, Thomas McEllistrim, James McDaid, Denis Naughten, John O’Mahony, Tom Sheahan and Sean Sherlock who have no fans on facebook.
Many TDs are very active on facebook, while some don't put any work into it, but are automatically given their wikipedia entry as a facebook page.
Here is a full list of the TDs who are on facebook and just how active they are.



Barry Andrews
Chris Andrews
Sean Ardagh
Bobby Aylward
James Bannon
Joe Behan
Niall Blaney
Aíne Brady
Cyprian Brady
Johnny Brady
Pat Breen
Tommy Broughan
Richard Bruton
Ulick Burke
Joan Burton
Thomas Byrne
Dara Calleary
Joe Carey
Deirdre Clune
Niall Collins
Margaret Conlon
Paul Connaughton
Sean Connick
Noel Coonan
Joe Costello
Mary Coughlan
Simon Coveney
Brian Cowen
Seymour Crawford
Michael Creed
John Cregan
Lucinda Creighton
Ciarán Cuffe
John Deasy
Jimmy Deenihan
Jimmy Devins
Pearse Doherty
Timmy Dooley
Andrew Doyle
Bernard Durkan
Damien English
Frank Fahey
Frank Feighan
Martin Ferris
Michael Finneran
Charles Flanagan
Terence Flanagan
Sean Fleming
Beverley Flynn
Eamon Gilmore
Paul Gogarty
John Gormley
Noel Grealish
Mary Hanafin
Sean Haughey
Brian Hayes
Tom Hayes
Jackie Healy-Rae
Michael D. Higgins
Maire Hoctor
Phil Hogan
Brendan Howlin
Paul Kehoe
Billy Kelleher
Brendan Kenneally
Michael Kennedy
Enda Kenny
Tony Killeen
Séamus Kirk
Brian Lenihan
Conor Lenihan
Michael Lowry
Kathleen Lynch
Ciarán Lynch
Martin Mansergh
Micheal Martin
Padraic McCormack
James McDaid
Thomas McEllistrim
Shane McEntee
Dinny McGinley
Mattie McGrath
Michael McGrath
Finian McGrath
John McGuinness
Liz McManus
Olivia Mitchell
John Moloney
Arthur Morgan
Michael Mulcahy
Denis Naughten
Dan Neville
M. J. Nolan
Michael Noonan
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
Éamon Ó Cuív
Seán Ó Fearghaíl
Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Darragh O’Brien
Charlie O’Connor
Willie O’Dea
Kieran O’Donnell
John O’Donohue
Fergus O’Dowd
Noel O’Flynn
Rory O’Hanlon
Batt O’Keeffe
Jim O’Keeffe
John O’Mahony
Mary O'Rourke
Brian O’Shea
Maureen O’Sullivan
Christy O’Sullivan
Jan O’Sullivan
Willie Penrose
Sean Power
Peter Power
Ruairi Quinn
Pat Rabbitte
James Reilly
Michael Ring
Dick Roche
Eamon Ryan
Trevor Sargent
Eamon Scanlon
Alan Shatter
Tom Sheahan
Sean Sherlock
Róisín Shortall
Brendan Smith
Emmet Stagg
David Stanton
Billy Timmins
Noel Treacy
Joanna Tuffy
Mary Upton
Leo Varadkar
Jack Wall
Mary Wallace
Mary Alexandra White
Michael Woods
1128 fans
753 friends
290 fans
6 fans (wiki page)
4 fans
12 fans (no picture)
388 friends
4 fans (wiki page)
34 fans
1 fan (wiki page)
Doesn't share
7 fans (wiki page)
1,168 fans
379 fans
2,071 fans
doesn't share
964 fans
doesn't share
224 fans
doesn't share
398 fans
3 fans (wiki page)
doesn't share
doesn't share
383 fans
15 fans
1,188 fans
1,699 fans
27 fans (wiki page)
348 fans
430 fans
1307 friends
641 fans
5 fans (wiki page)
171 fans
76 fans
4,267 fans
doesn't share
547 fans
doesn't share
27 fans (wiki page)
492 fans
754 fans
3,855 fans
0 fans (wiki page)
1,700 fans
437 fans
0 fans (wiki page)
doesn't share
1,448 fans
doesn't share
508 fans
589 fans
671 friends
645 fans
934 friends
1,797 friends
25 fans (wiki page)
1,319 fans
doesn't share
1,069 friends
8 fans (wiki page)
1,574 friends
14 fans (wiki page)
418 friends
491 friends
2,548 fans
28 fans (wiki page)
7 fans (wiki page)
23 fans (wiki page)
25 fans (wiki page)
5,001 friends
953 friends
654 friends
18 fans (wiki page)
4,070 friends
doesn't share
0 fans (wiki page)
0 fans (wiki page)
442 fans
21 fans (wiki page)
1,103 friends
279 friends
22 fans (wiki page)
1,634 friends
9 fans (wiki page)
244 fans
149 friends
10 fans (wiki page)
138 fans
0 fans (wiki page)
454 friends
1 fan (wiki page)
2 fans (wiki page)
8 fans (wiki page)
1 fan (wiki page)
6 fans (wiki page)
2,142 friends
402 fans
400 fans
3,999 fans
13 fans (wiki page)
1 fan (wiki page)
892 friends
740 friends
367 fans
10 fans (wiki page)
2 fans (wiki page
0 fans (wiki page)
9 fans (wiki page)
5 fans (wiki page)
17 fans (wiki page)
220 fans
567 fans
64 friends
11 fans (wiki page)
216 fans
32 fans (wiki page)
117 fans (wiki page)
17 fans (wiki page)
20 fans (wiki page)
2617 fans
15 fans (wiki page)
15 fans (wiki page)
4 fans (wiki page)
29 fans (wiki page)
0 fans (wiki page)
0 fans (wiki page)
8 fans (wiki page)
6 fans
12 fans (wiki page)
doesn't share
2,493 fans
27 fans (wiki page)
97 fans
6 fans wiki page)
258 fans (wiki page)
4 fans (wiki page)
883 friends
6 fans (wiki page)
3 fans (wiki page)

Picture source


















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Sunday, January 23, 2011

Basic voting right denied

For three weeks now I have been avidly following the decline of Fianna Fail. I watched as Cowen tried to hold on to his position before giving up. I’ve noticed what TDs have made it public that they want to take his place and I’ve shrugged with indifference as Enda Kenny tries to make Fine Gael more accessible to people my age. But I, an Irish citizen, cannot vote on March 11.
For the last three weeks I have been living in Newfoundland, Canada, on mandatory study abroad placement from the University of Limerick. I’ve called my local TDs to see if I can vote from Canada and, alas, I cannot. I will only be gone four months in total and one of my basic rights as a citizen has been taken away from me.
It seems that people can vote from various places around the world, but Newfoundland, which is home to many Irish citizens with dual citizenship, is not one of them. I was contemplating for a while on whether it was at all possible to return for polling day, but it really isn’t. As a fan of the drama that is Irish politics, I am absolutely disgusted that the Government hasn’t made exceptions to help people in my situation vote. I just hope that people who are luckily enough to vote in this important election make the most of it.
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