Understatement!

I’ll let other people talk about the liveblog and the results. The weekend was stunning on a personal note and it was brilliant to work with Cian, Alexia, Mark, and Damien over Saturday and Sunday in bringing it all to life and have inputs from so many others around the country. Thanks again to D4 hotels for the room for the blogger HQ and like many of the readers and commenters on the live blog it seems people are saying roll on the General Election and online media bringing news to people who are interested and those who claim not to be intersted but really are!

I’m very tired but have had a few thoughts simmering – excuse the babble!

• Yes there was a huge wave of anger against this government and people took it out on them and the Greens in particular.  I’m going to mention one factor – the removal of the Xmas bonus – don’t mess with the older people! Time and again this election I’ve heard it said in anger – it’s bigger than the mess with the banks as a reason people voted.

• Dublin Councils are going to be great fun to watch for the next 4 years – All shades of the ‘left’ in the majority? – Labour polled extremely well in Dublin City and elsewhere and with SF, People Before Profit (Yes I know I’m not alone in thinking the Swimmies change name and get 5 seats in Dublin!) various Independents and the Socialist party polling well on Joe’s wings it’s going to be messy.   FF only have 18 seats or so out of 130 seats in the 4 Dublin councils.  Berties Dubs have deserted the party.  And Mannix Flynn will be very interesting to watch – I would like one of his posters I believe he’ll be tweeting where to meet him to get one when he takes them down on Tuesday.

• Lots of women were elected and I look forward to seeing the stats on the candidates and how many got elected. Now can we see if there would be more transparency in politics as a result? And will the many forthcoming selection conventions for Dail tickets see an end to women candidates who have done the work being pushed aside for parachute candidates. Many many other questions there…

• Frank McBrearty Jnr got elected! (Despite vandalism of posters and rows in street with Pat ‘The Cope’ Gallagher and also Labour not having any organsiation of note in Donegal)

• Maureen O’Sullivan TD – nobody saw that coming – but nobody in media would admit they didn’t see it coming either yesterday when they were so lovely about her! Well done to the Gregory Group!

• And yes there is a bit of me sad for Paschal Donohue who became a bit of a personal favourite for his tweeting and his personal blog and media coverage and the rotweiller emerging from a puppy.  He worked extremely hard and survived being knocked down by a car and having Enda in his ear constantly.

• Simon Harris – you will remember him – 4 quotas for Greystones Town Council? And elected to Wicklow County Council also on over 1.5 quotas! Surely the mascot must have been thanked in his speech?

• The look of bewilderment on Green Party faces – is it political naiveity?  To quote a person I heard at a Labour party coalition conference 17 years ago if  ‘you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas’.  And I know it’s really sad to lose one’s seat and 14 councillors lost their seats – someone texted me yesterday and said ‘maybe a lot of those green jobs announced in the last month still need filling…’ ouch.  From watching their party conference earlier this year I know there is a lot of soul searching going on – well the search needs to end and the party needs to cop on and call their partners on more than a few things and stop ignoring them like they don’t exist. It’s not like FF want to run to the polls anytime soon is it?

• Lisa Connell got 229 first preferences in the Dublin South West Inner City Constituency.

• RTE had a terrible election results weekend  – sport took precedence over radio coverage which is usually the must listen to at election time. I don’t want to hear it was only the locals/euros – this was the most important mid term election in decades and they went missing on Saturday Afternoon and evening and until 9pm last night.  The money must be really running out in RTE ?  Or were they worried about offending someone?

• Newstalk played a blinder with their RDS stage and webcam. Local radio was a joy to tune into – Highland radio, Shannonside, Radio Kerry amongst the ones I and others listened to.  Some local papers were on the ball too with publication of counts online and also twittering from counts – The Mayo News, Westmeath Examiner and Tallaght Echo stand up and take a bow!

• Will George Lee TD continue his town hall meetings? When will we know more about George’s thoughts on things other than the economy?

• Next time the Irish Times do a Campaign Watch blog, well I hope they think before they write – it was really below par for the Irish Times who are the leading media outlet for blogging and the paper of record. It was as bad as the Phoenix on a slow week and sometimes worse than reading the Star on Sunday at times.

And finally for all those wheelie bins out there – time to fight back against those who are looking for you and claim you went missing!