Messages

Lot of the narrative is around county won't break the rules and things will be a lot tighter. Can't agree with that when Sligo manager Carew in paper today talks about having 60 players in on trial when gaa states it was strictly 32 players per panel. He also had over 45 players for a trial game against Wexford .

He's managing Carlow now.

Elite sports teams are exempt from a load of the restrictions.
I believe post match meals are ok.
Some ne'er do wells in a certain Town reported to the Gardai that there was a "shindig" and revelry going on.

Curtain twitching is alive and well in Boyle it seems.

Was just looking at the roll of honour there, mad to think that both Lacken (1917) and Ballycastle (1936, 37 & 39) have county titles considering where they are now.

That wouldn't be unusual if you looked across the various counties, especially when you go back to the first 30/40 years before things largely settled down. Indeed over here we won our junior semi final today, the two teams involved had dominated the 60's and early 70's at senior level winning about 12/15 senior titles, but both are a long way from that now.

Interestingly when you look at the Mayo roll of honour, aside from the big two towns at the top, all the teams that follow them on the list won most if not all their titles in a certain period of time, even if the Knockmore period is rather extended, but still all largely within a generation. Ballintubber might win another title or two in the years to come but it's not impossible to think that they wouldn't go the same way as the Cross's and the Garrymore's eventually, as this crop of players fade away.

What is mad though is to think that Lacken were in a senior final in the mid 1980's. Now that fall was hard. Though Shrule will have some sympathy for them on that front too.

Any other county not having their normal leagues this year or is it only Mayo?

No league here either.

Pauline is 1/3 to get elected, delighted to see it. Its only a pity some of the useless goons we have had for decades from FG and FF that delivered absolutely ZERO for Cavan in their time couldnt all be dumped out too but I suppose all in good time. Do you know for example Cavan has been pretty much ignored by the IDA because supposedly the main centres we should have been commuting to are Dundalk and Sligo. Anyone who knows the region that would try and make either of those journeys over and back in a day will know how preposterous that is. Cavan19 is likely a member of Young FF or FG and has signed up here to do his patriotic duty (like RTE and the Indo) to make sure you all know the terrible truth about Sinn Fein.

As opposed to yourself shilling on here for SF for some time now.

I have never sought to hide who I will be voting for on Saturday and why, how about you lad. You too embarrassed to tell us you will be voting for? Marc McSharry or Eamonn Scanlon or god help us John Perry the renegade?

We have a local Independent from the parish that I'll give the vote to, then Scanlon and McCloskey the Aontu candidate. Won't go too far on the paper beyond that and it'll not really matter anyway.

Can someone please dumb down how the voting system works. How are quotas decided upon, how are surplus votes distrubuted etc

Lets say, first preference votes in a 5 seat cons.

x has 12,200
y has 7,800
z has 7,400
a has 4,300
b has 3,600
c has 2,100
d has 1,700
e has 1,000
f has 670
g has 410
h has 200
I has 120

I'll explain it using two different examples.

Last time out in Roscommon the total valid poll was 45680, and three seats were available. Therefore you divide 45680 by four (the number of seats plus one) and added 1 to the divided figure, to ensure that four candidates could not possibly reach the quota, i.e. 45680 / 4 = 11420, add 1 = 11421.

In that first count Denis Naughten sailed home with 13936 votes, putting him over the quota by 2515. Therefore his surplus was to be distributed on the second count of 2515. To do this they would check all of Naughten's 13936 votes, see how many votes transferred to each of the other candidates, get their totals and divide it into 2515 to get the proportionate amount to be given to each in the second count. As Naughten was an Independent this vote scattered a little, with Fitzmaurice getting the most (1214), followed Hopkins and Murphy, with the rest receiving small transfers. The contentious aspect is what happens to the surplus votes, as I understand it the votes to be added to the other candidate's piles are taken at random, i.e. they'd take any 1214 of Naughten's No 1's that went No 2 Fitzmaurice and add them in a separate bundle on top of Fitzmaurice's pile.

If every one of Naughten's No 1's were transferable then Fitzmaurice would have got 48% of Naughten's No 2's, about 6727. However it is possible that Naughten got a few No 1's that were "plumpers", i.e. just 1 for him and no other preference. But so long as at least 2516 of Naughten's votes transferred at all then those plumpers would be irrelevant and a calculation would have to be made, unlike in the later example.

Next door in Sligo/Leitrim there were two different examples of how the surplus can work. On the 11th count the Leitrim FF candidate Paddy O'Rourke was eliminated, and his transfers of 6,083 were the 12th count. So his votes would have both a party transfer and a Leitrim/local transfer element. So that count went as follows:

MacSharry (FF, Sligo town) plus 1707, total 13227 (exceeding the quota of 12468)
Reynolds (FG, Leitrim) plus 1171, total 10092
Kenny (SF, Leitrim) plus 1323, total 9294
McLoughlin (FG, Sligo) plus 112, total 10167
Scanlon (FF, South Sligo) plus 1323, total 9145
MacManus (SF, Sligo) plus 48, total 7093

MacSharry was elected but his surplus of 759 would make no difference, as it couldn't elect anyone and MacManus was too far behind to catch Scanlon or Kenny. So he was eliminated and his votes distributed. As these were SF votes and added to by Sligo town left wing transfers then Kenny was going to be the obvious beneficiary, though McLoughlin and Scanlon could pick up some of the Sligo-minded votes here too:

Reynolds +85 total 10177
Kenny +4772 total 14066 (elected)
McLoughlin +362 total 10529
Scanlon +409 total 9554

So Kenny was elected with a surplus of 1598, and as this was higher then MacSharry's, and it was now down to two seats between the three remaining candidates, it was distributed. This is where the other example I mentioned above comes in. Because it is often the case that party transfers may go 1-2-3 and no further, and especially with SF votes, then there is a possibility in later counts that not all of the surplus is transferable for the reason below.

The Kenny surplus was counted by checking only the 4772 votes that he received from his running mate MacManus in order to exceed the quota, not all of his 14066 votes when he was elected as some might think. So they checked those 4772 votes and sure enough many didn't transfer any further, and as it happened the number that were transferable was less than 1598. So instead of doing a calculation of the votes received by each candidate and allocating the surplus proportionally, each vote that the remaining candidates got was effectively a whole vote, as follows:

Reynolds +139 total 10316
McLoughlin +381 total 10910
Scanlon +631 total 10185
Non transferable 447 - but in reality this was 3621 of the 4772 votes that didn't transfer, which meant that the candidates got 100% of the transfers that they actually got off that surplus. And as it was largely Sligo-based to begin with then Scanlon got most, with the added bonus of being FF rather than FG, and McLoughlin got a chunk too.

So the last count was to transfer the surplus MacSharry got of 759 from the first count listed above, which was the 1707 votes he obtained from his FF running mate in Leitrim. And so despite the fact that he trailed going into this count and had looked to be all but gone prior to O'Rourke's elimination, Scanlon was home and dry as these votes had already gone FF 1 FF 2, so they were almost certain to go No 3 as well:

Reynolds +101 total 10417
McLoughlin +21 total 10931
Scanlon +637 total 10822

Here the full 759 surplus was transferable which indicated that the bulk of those votes did continue past 1-2, so Scanlon could have got up to 1433 of the O'Rourke-MacSharry transfers out of the 1707 such votes. Reynolds as a Leitrim candidate did peel off some of those votes, but it wasn't enough to hold on, and with no other votes remaining to transfer McLoughlin and Scanlon were elected without reaching the quota.

It's a rather convoluted way of explaining it I know but this does hopefully show the different factors in how the counts can pan out.

Pauline is 1/3 to get elected, delighted to see it. Its only a pity some of the useless goons we have had for decades from FG and FF that delivered absolutely ZERO for Cavan in their time couldnt all be dumped out too but I suppose all in good time. Do you know for example Cavan has been pretty much ignored by the IDA because supposedly the main centres we should have been commuting to are Dundalk and Sligo. Anyone who knows the region that would try and make either of those journeys over and back in a day will know how preposterous that is. Cavan19 is likely a member of Young FF or FG and has signed up here to do his patriotic duty (like RTE and the Indo) to make sure you all know the terrible truth about Sinn Fein.

As opposed to yourself shilling on here for SF for some time now.

It might force tweddle dumb and tweddle dee to amalgamate which would be a good thing.

Haven't FFG already amalgamated?

They haven't, but when the likes of you treat supporting SF like it was your football team that's the sort of shite that will be spouted.

I wonder where those opinion polls were carried out.
Doubtful if Shinners would get 5% here or in most Western or Midland constituencies.

Really?

2016 election - SF First Pref %
Roscommon/Galway - 6.7%;
Donegal - 26.7%;
Sligo/Leitrim - 17.8%;
Mayo - 10.1%;
Galway West - 8.9%;
Galway East - 5.9%;
Longford/Westmeath - 9.5%;
Cavan/Monaghan - 27.1%
Laois - 21.2%;
Offaly - 10.9%.

Would you have the more recent and relevant...2019 figures?

Roscommon 7.4%
Galway Co 4.8%
Galway City 5.4%
Mayo 7.4%
Sligo 8.2%
Leitrim 17.2%
Donegal 19.4%
Cavan 12.4%
Monaghan 34.4%
Longford 4.6%
Westmeath 5.8%
Offaly 4.6%
Laois 11.1%

Prediction

Ok.

FG 55
FF 48
Lab 5
SF 20
Green 7
Looney Left 4
Inds 19

FF 57
FG 48
SF 18
GRN 9
LAB 7
PBP/LEFT 3
SD's 2
Others 16

Seems the Election will be on SATURDAY!!! 8th February.
Leo's hand forced as it was rumoured Maria of the swings Bailey wouldn't vote if there was a No Confidence motion on Harris.
Will be great fun as the new Register dirsnt come into force till 14th Feb.

He new FG wouldn't win the no confidence vote so called the election to avoid the embarrassment of defeat.

Why would he call it for a Saturday? Friday was an ideal day as you had the weekend for the bloodsports of watching all the election results coming in.

Election is on the same day as Ireland v Wales in 6 nations in Dublin, but I doubt Leo was aware of that. I wonder will our wonderful sports minister go to the Aviva for the game??

He might as well, get to see a few mauls before he himself is mauled the next day.

Compare Conor Murphy's performance on GMU this morning with the rambling speedy Gonzales that is Michelle O'Neill. Time to change her.

If only the party had been given an opportunity to remove her from her leadership role...

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/11888482/carlo-ancelotti-agrees-deal-to-become-everton-manager?fbclid=IwAR2DMUPei4xu98kIkDcR2UCHJ24QhIb7g6UJLcRyl7xbivHs-QwOONA5xBc

Big gains for labour in latest poll just released up 3% points (only 5% behind Tories which is smallest gap since election was called) hung parliament is on the cards but who knows at this stage the polls bouncing all over the place.

What polls are you reading???

I've seen anything from 13 to 8 haven't seen it as close as that though!

Savanna Comres

Tories 41% -
Labour 36% +3%
LibDem 12% -
Other 11% -3%

Released in the last hour.

Funny you ignored the other polls released this evening too, guess they don't quite suit your narrative.

CON: 45% (+1)
LAB: 35% (+2)
LDEM: 10% (-1)
BREX: 3% (-)
GRN: 3% (+1)
via
@DeltaPollUK
, 09 -11 Dec
Chgs. w/ 07 Dec

CON: 44% (-)
LAB: 32% (-)
LDEM: 13% (-2)
BREX: 3% (+1)
GRN: 3% (-)
via
@KantarTNS
, 09 -11 Dec
Chgs. w/ 02 Dec

CON: 43% (-)
LAB: 34% (-)
LDEM: 11% (-2)
BREX: 4% (+1)
GRN: 3% (+1)
via
@PanelbaseMD
, 10 - 11 Dec
Chgs. w/ 06 Dec

CON: 41% (-)
LAB: 32% (-)
LDEM: 14% (-)
GRN: 4% (-)
BREX: 3% (-1)
via
@BMGResearch
, 06 - 11 Dec
Chgs. w/ 06 Dec

CON: 45% (-1)
LAB: 33% (+2)
LDEM: 12% (-1)
via
@OpiniumResearch
, 10 - 11 Dec
Chgs. w/ 06 Dec

I think that he is a poor leader and that he is having a bad campaign.

Yes you have mentioned that once or twice alright.