Having spent the last several days sat atop the fog-shrouded Cruachán Aighle, or Cruach Phádraig to the tourists, I am sad to report that no great insight has been offered to me. Yes, despite the upward slog in honour of Lúgh Lámhfhada whose high mountain peak it was until some snake-charmer with voices in his head shoved him to one side, I have no more idea than anyone else what the outcome of today’s general election vote will be. A Fine Gael government leading a rainbow coalition of Labour and gene-pool Blueshirts and champagne socialists posing as independents or parties in their own right? Quite possibly. A semi-resurgent Fianna Fáil amenable to a 2016 version of the mid-1980s’ “Tallaght Strategy” propping up an FG-led administration, all in the name of the “national interest”? Future electoral self-interest for FF would say no, a lust for power would say, why the hell not!
Whatever the case, here for the record is how I voted earlier this evening in the general election of 2016, by order of preference:
1: Sinn Féin
2: Independents 4 Change
3: AAA-PBP
4: Independents 4 Change
And that’s it. Yep, no one else was worthy of consideration, I’m afraid to say. Parties of the Right, or near-Right or willing to do business with the Right will never get my vote again. So, next up – exit polls!
One thing to note from my western sojourn. The worse possible roads in County Mayo are signposted as 100 km/h while the best possible roads in County Dublin are signposted as 60 km/h. Utterly inexplicable!
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Seems it would take Lugh’s everything-piercing projectiles to cut through all the political crap you’re saddled with. Any special reason btw to be sitting up there at this time of year, somehow I don’t see you as the penitential type 😉 Or was the full moon involved … Somehow it brought to mind :
Coiche nod gleith clochur slébe? (Who smooths the mountain slopes)
Cia on co tagair aesa éscai? (Who declares he ages of the Moon)
Cia du i-laig fuiniud gréne? (Who is the place where the Sun descends)
etc.
Just realised how koan-like these Old Irish lines are. Perhaps Irish politics was always an enigma …
LikeLike
Seamas, as you said yourself the peak was “fog-shrouded” – no surprise it didn’t lift the mist from your mind obout the GE outcome!
The rest of us just flailed around in ground-level haze, getting nowhere in the predictions stakes!!!
Though a sign in the skies did make its way through –
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2016/02/24/irish-general-election-sign-in-the-sky/
the coming days will tell us what it meant!!!
LikeLike