Possibilities Loom, and Mary Lou McDonald Faces Concerns

The outcome of the upcoming by-election in Dublin Central this May is shrouded in uncertainty. Recent developments have likely stirred unease within Sinn Féin, particularly for its leader, Mary Lou McDonald.

Despite any justifications Sinn Féin might provide, it seems clear that McDonald did not secure her preferred candidate for the district.

This week, local party members opted for Councillor Janice Boylan—who garnered fewer than 1,000 first-preference votes in the 2024 general election and whose candidacy emerged after some internal disagreements.

Despite any public statements, many believe that McDonald favored Gillian Sherratt for the candidacy.

Given that McDonald holds a seat in this constituency, it’s hard to imagine she wasn’t deeply invested in selecting the candidate for the by-election. After all, should everything align with her party’s strategy, this individual would be joining her in the pursuit of maintaining two seats in the 2029 general election.

Sherratt, the mother of the late nine–year–old Harvey Morrison Sherratt, so shamefully let down by the HSE when he was denied the necessary surgery his condition demanded, is a party member from Dublin West.

The idea that she would have contested the party constituency meeting to secure the nomination without first receiving party and leadership approval is a nonsense.

Yet the local membership went with the woman who was known to them, not the woman who has established a larger national presence over the last year. This will be seen by some as a form of snub to the leader.

Not that it will matter if Boylan wins the seat. But she has a hell of a job ahead of her.

She should benefit from getting the Sinn Féin votes that McDonald received in 2024, although the turnout for the party may not be as large this time. She should be confident that her own supporters from last time out will return to vote for her again.

But what if they don’t in the numbers required? What if the convicted criminal Gerry Hutch, also known as ‘The Monk’, manages to do better than his first preference total in November 2024, when only a failure to attract transfers denied him a seat?

 He may remain ‘transfer toxic’ but his campaign, announced during the week, to persuade those in the constituency who have never registered on the electoral register to do so might prove very clever.

Although this is a contest to replace Paschal Donohoe there is little expectation that a Government party nominee, either from Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, can win the seat: for those parties it is an exercise in establishing recognition for the next general election. 

In normal circumstances the lead party of opposition, especially in a constituency that hosts its party leader, should win and may well do so. But that it is far from certain is intriguing.

Commissioner downplays risks for Israel football match 

Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly is well aware of the challenges that will be posed by the football international between the Republic of Ireland men’s team and Israel on October 4, but believes his force is up to the job of providing the necessary security for everyone.

What else can he say? If would be extraordinary if he were to say that it was beyond his force’s capabilities if, simultaneously, indeed over a six–month period, it is having to provide enhanced security for the many dignitaries who will be attending events arising from Ireland’s presidency of the European Council.

Equally, it would be very strange to say that it can’t be done if, only less a month previously, US president Donald Trump attended at the Irish Open golf tournament in Doonbeg, Co. Clare, and the Garda said it could handle that but not the Lansdowne Road football fixture.

Commissioner Kelly said on Thursday that gardaí are working on a major policing plan for the Ireland–Israel game, and confirmed that ‘this particular match is going to have a lot of unique challenges to it, for sure. We will have a significant placing plan in place for this. 

We’ll have a strategic and tactical commander, highly trained senior officers in place for the planning of this. We will have a significant amount of resources and equipment around this whole event.

‘We’ve invested heavily around public order equipment. We’ll do lots of messaging before this. And if people want to go and they want to watch the match, or if people want to go and protest peacefully, that’s absolutely fine.

‘But if people go to that event and commit criminal acts we will deal with that. We’ll make arrests, whatever we have to do.

But we have a lot of experience in dealing with challenging events and we’ve done some very challenging matches previously.’

Few are likely to provoke as much tension as this one, not at least since the English football hooligans came to the old Lansdowne Road in February 1995 and forced the abandonment of an international game.

 The Garda reacted with considerable force to the provocation. Few complained when some gardaí got their batons out and used them emphatically in dealing with some of the English thugs.

But next October threatens to be something entirely different, especially if it is Irish fans who step out of line. Nobody will want any of them to get a thump of a baton because if they do they’ll be outraged.

Let’s assume that tickets will be sold and that the ground will be largely full – that attendance numbers will not be restricted.

Many Irish fans might decide not to go as a protest at the Israeli presence but others will go to vocally register their displeasure. 

Which is fair enough, but there is the danger of some of them taking to the pitch to convey their protest to Israeli players, or engaging in other acts that may provoke a response from An Garda Síochána.

Any pitch incursions would bring about heavy fines for the FAI but that’s not necessarily the point: anything that might bring harm to a player or member of the Israeli coaching staff would cause international outrage. Remember that fencing is not allowed to keep fans off the pitch. It is largely self–regulation that does so.

Although most fans will angrily deny any intention to behave violently, you wouldn’t put it past some people to try to gain access to the pitch en masse so as to fly a few Palestinian flags and raise other banners.

Gardaí will have to prepare for the potential for flares to be fired from the stands, as happened at the Dundalk versus Drogheda League of Ireland game last Friday evening, or other missiles. All fans on the way into the game may have to be searched.

It is most unlikely that Israeli fans would be allowed to attend, at least not those coming directly from Israel.

But how many might come from London for example? And, worryingly, what is the possibility that loyalists from the North – who identify with Israel in the way Republicans identify with Palestine – might come south to the match to cause trouble?

Ideally, this match would not be happening at all. UEFA should not indulge Israel in competition for the same reasons that Russia has been expelled.

Too much human life has been lost in Israel’s disproportionate response to the outrage of the Hamas attack of October 2023. 

Ireland should not be required to fulfil the home and away fixtures. But, unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world. Far from it.

If UEFA insists, then the match fixed for Dublin should be held behind closed doors at a venue outside Ireland, just as Belgium moved a game from Brussels to Hungary.

But if it does go ahead in Dublin, then those choosing to protest should restrict themselves to doing so peacefully outside the ground. 

Because what benefit would there be to staging a major protest that disrupts the game? It would not do the people of Gaza any good.

A protest at a football game is not going to change any of the actions of the Israeli government.

The danger is that, instead of doing any good, some of those intending to protest will do so for self–indulgent reasons to make them feel better about themselves.

Trump visit will be a security headache 

If the Israeli men’s football team is almost certain to come to Ireland in October, there is some doubt as to whether Donald Trump will come in September to attend the Irish Open Golf at Doonbeg in Co. Clare – a venue he owns of course.

At least as many people who don’t want Israel here won’t want Trump in Ireland either.

However, as in the case of the Israeli team, the Government is likely to swallow its pride and allow Trump, left, to arrive. 

The question though, is whether or not Trump would want to do anything else while in Ireland, such as visiting and addressing the houses of the Oireachtas (he does love to make a speech).

If he expressed a desire to do so, it would be very difficult for the Government to say no, even though the likelihood is that many TDs and Senators would protest loudly and create something of an international incident.

If that would create its own headache, then even the arrival of Trump into Ireland would add more. 

We have plenty of experience in providing protection for visiting US presidents but the likely level of security required for Trump – giving the attempted assassinations in his homeland – would be likely of a different scale to anything experienced before.

That said, we might expect the US secret service to take control of a large part of that security effort, even if our Government would insist, publicly at least, that our relevant authorities would remain in charge.

Somehow, that’s unlikely but better, it would seem, to have the US secret service roaming with weaponry to protect their man, than leaving Ireland with the responsibility to ensure that nothing untoward happens to Trump.

Greens’ win shows UK democracy is not dead

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has gone out of his way to be a better political friend to Ireland than his immediate predecessors were. The question is how much longer the Labour leader remains in power.

He suffered a bad blow yesterday when Labour lost a by–election in the Greater Manchester area, surrendering a seat that the party had held since 1931. (The incumbent had retired due to ill–health.) 

It wasn’t just lost – Labour’s candidate finished in third place. The party faces local elections in May in a bad place and it could be Starmer’s last outing as leader if things go very badly wrong.

In many respects, Thursday’s vote was an encouraging outcome for those who have worried about the divisiveness of British politics in recent times and the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform outfit.

Despite getting a fraction of the coverage in the media, the Green Party’s candidate, Hannah Spencer, won the by–election with a whopping majority.

Farage, typically, went all Trump–lite in his response, claiming ‘this election was a victory for sectarian voting and cheating’. There was almost no evidence to support this claim but when does that stop his ilk?

Reform’s candidate Matt Goodwin, now known online as Matt Badloser, came out with a statement that was outrageously racist: ‘We are losing our country. A dangerous Muslim sectarianism has emerged. We have only one general election left to save Britain.’

This was straight from the JD Vance playbook but it was ridiculous. 

The people of Gorton and Denton elected a white woman from a party that is led by a gay Jewish man. 

It was democracy in glorious action but the attempt to undermine it was deeply sinister. If anything the outcome was a celebration of anti–sectarianism.

It was also an indication that the British people remain fair–minded overall and that the appeal of Farage and his grifters may thankfully be limited.