BY STEPHANIE LORD

WALKING INTO the count centre in Dundalk on Saturday morning was unnerving. Consistent late nights over the course of the campaign and hard work from the Sinn Féin canvassers had made people tired. But they were excited and it was nothing that the a few cups of coffee couldn’t fix.
There was a lot riding on this and we knew it but the morning’s exit polls looked... Free article

ALMOST a quarter of a million (220,685) people voted for 41 Sinn Féin candidates in 38 constituencies in the 2011 Leinster House election, electing 14 TDs, a record performance for the party who won 9.9% of first preferences.

• Carlow/Kilkenny

Vote % of poll
2002 2,078 3.42%
2007 2,568 3.8%
2011 7,033 9.5%
Kathleen Funchion and John Cassin more than doubled... Free article

So near and yet so far

BY MÍCHEÁL
Mac DONNCHA

DESPITE our best efforts, elections are not scientific exercises and cannot be reduced to a formula. They are things of emotion, passion, dejection, elation. Ironically, it is at the most scientific stage of elections – the number-crunching in the count centre – that these emotions are seen most clearly.
They were there in Dublin’s... Free article

BY PAUL HOGAN

JONATHAN O’BRIEN has been involved in politics for just over a decade now and his and Sinn Féin’s undoubted hard graft and vocal opinion on local issues is set to be rewarded with a seat in Dáil Éireann at the third time of asking.
Married to Gillian, they have two sons and two daughters: Ryan (16), Aoife (12), Niamh (8) and Connor (6).
The Farranree native who... Free article

BY CAOILFHIONN
NÍ DHONNABHAIN

WHEN Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty succeeded in his High Court bid to force the Government to hold the Donegal South-West by-election, the days of the 30th Dáil were numbered and a general election became inevitable.
It was an election a long time in the coming. The Fianna Fáil/Green Party Government had become increasingly unstable following a number... Free article

Pearse tops poll

SINN FÉIN’S tally team were only too keen to assemble for the second time in three months at a count centre in Donegal South-West as few were doubtful of Pearse Doherty’s chances of re-election after his historic by-election win in November.
With the help of some Independent candidates’ passes, almost 60 party activists and supporters gathered to count the... Free article

Larkin, the King and Croke Park

ON the North Strand on an afternoon that actually felt finally like spring has arrived, it is not hard to find Mary Lou McDonald and her canvass team.
Their yellow jackets emblazoned with “Vote Number 1 Mary Lou McDonald” can be seen from the Five Lamps. And the redoubtable Nicola’s tasteful(!) choice of music plays from her flag-bedecked car.

If you’re young, go for it

KATHRYN REILLY was one of the new faces in Election 2011 and one of the youngest (at 22) but she also attracted attention because she was one of the most articulate of the newcomers and promises much as a young woman and future TD.
SORCHA BERRY spoke to Kathryn in a short break on the canvass trail.

What inspired you to get into republican politics?
I... Free article

Man of the match Mac Lochlainn

BY MARK MULLAN

THE sports hall in Letterkenny’s Aura centre has no doubt seen a few intriguing contests in it’s time but few can have been as clear-cut as Pádraig Mac Lochlainn’s triumph in Donegal North-East on Saturday.
This has always been a fixture that Sinn Féin had hoped to win but few would have expected the compelling nature of Pádraig’s... Free article

Seeking justice for Ballymurphy and Manus Deery

“BLOODY SUNDAY,” Gerry Adams boomed across Guildhall Square in Derry on January 30th, “IS the defining story of the British Army in Ireland.”
The Sinn Féin president was addressing a crowd that numbered as many as 30,000 who turned out to remember the 14 killed and many more wounded on Bloody Sunday by soldiers from the British... Free article