Thursday, May 31, 2007
It was lack of southern Protestants ‘wot lost it’…
Tongue firmly in cheek, Newton Emerson reckons that Sinn Fein ‘bombed’ simply because there weren’t enough Protestants in the Republic to wind up their supporters... (subs needed)
Newton’s Optic: Sinn Féin has blamed “a serious shortage of Protestants in the 26 counties” for its poor showing in last week’s election.
“Sinn Féin draws its core support from people who can’t be relied on to vote,” explained Dr Pat Answer, Professor of Advanced Shinnerology at Dublin Sunday Business College.
“They might be too drunk or hung-over on election day, or have a court appearance or a meeting with their parole officer.
“They might have injured themselves by climbing through a kitchen window while carrying a wide-screen television. Or they might simply have lost track of the date because they never go to work.
“Whatever the reason, Sinn Féin voters need to be provoked to the polls and there simply aren’t enough Protestants in the Republic to cause the necessary level of antagonism.”
The situation is very different in Northern Ireland, where the daily sight of Protestants cutting their perfect hedges, driving their sensible cars and going to church in elaborate hats wedged tightly onto their pointy little heads ensures that Sinn Féin voters are always angry enough to cast a ballot.
Attempts to widen the party’s southern appeal beyond its traditional sectarian base may only have made matters worse.
“According to our research, many Sinn Féin voters thought that Mary Lou McDonald was a Protestant,” Dr Answer said. “She certainly has that smug look about her. Or at least she certainly did.”
Dublin Sunday Business College has defended the wider sociological methodology behind its research, which overestimated Sinn Féin’s final tally by a statistically acceptable 300 per cent.
“We were right about the number of people dumb enough to vote for Sinn Féin,” Dr Answer said.
“We just forgot that they were lazy as well.”
For party activists the question now is where they go from here.
“Well, we can’t go back up North,” Sinn Féin community outreach negotiator Anne Phoblacht said. “It’s full of Protestants.”
Developing a separate southern strategy could also prove problematic.
“We warned people on the doorsteps to vote for us or the Protestants would get in,” Ms Phoblacht said. “But everyone just laughed because they thought we meant Trevor Sargent.”
The Irish Times understands that senior party figures have already discussed the possibility of bringing more Protestants into the Republic. Martin Ferris has agreed to charter a boat and Aengus Ó Snodaigh has offered the use of a van.
“We’re mainly interested in people from Nigeria,” Ms Phoblacht said. “You can have any Protestants you like as long as they’re black.”
Experts agree that this is Sinn Féin’s only hope for an electoral breakthrough.
“There’s no point being sectarian when there aren’t any Protestants and no point pretending to be non-sectarian when there aren’t any Protestants,” Dr Answer explained.
“There’s also no point talking about equality when you’ve no Protestants to be equal to and no point talking about rights when you can’t claim that Protestants are infringing your rights.
“So really it’s all the Protestants’ fault. No wonder people hate those hedge-cutting freaks.”
But it’s not all bad news for Sinn Féin. The party polled quite well in Border counties due to Northern Ireland’s provocative proximity.
“If there had still been some Protestant farmers in the area we might even have won a few seats,” Ms Phoblacht said.
“What a pity we killed them.”
Mick Fealty @ 12:55 PM
A highly offensive article from Mr Emerson. Newt has no-one ever told you not to mock the afflicted?
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 04:14 PMThe offensive bit isnt the suff about the prods its the secatarian bullsh*t about all Sinn fein supporters being on the dole and thieves to boot.
Funny how the prods all get to be upstanding cityizens instead of the drug dealers and lager louts so many of them arePosted by on May 31, 2007 @ 04:19 PMHelp, help, I’m being
oppressedoffended!
How is it sectarian to call Sinn Fein voters thieves? Are you assuming that they’re all Catholic?Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 04:34 PM180,573 lazy, prod-hating thieves.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 04:54 PMI hate to remind the bigots of the IRA but their genocidial campaign against Protestants pre-dated the birth of the Rev Ian Paisley by hundreds of years.
Can anyone explain to be why SF/SDLP/FF are in favour of further integration of ROI and NI into a federal Europe whilst opposing it within the UK apart from naked sectarianism interest!
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 05:14 PMI think the problem is, people are taking this far too seriously, Newt has slagged prods just as much as shinners in the past. Lighten up, if you can’t laugh at urself who can u laugh at?
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 05:15 PMVaguely amusing. School newspaper standard.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 05:23 PM“Can anyone explain to be why SF/SDLP/FF are in favour of further integration of ROI and NI into a federal Europe whilst opposing it within the UK apart from naked sectarianism interest!”
Alternating presidency vs absolute sovereignty
Country commissioners vs majoritarian government
Restricted competencies vs no constitutional restriction
No army vs expeditionary obsession
Relatively light central government vs Rampant London metropolitanism
Net receipient of tax from CAP vs watching the ships sail off with your agricultural produce while the plain people drop with starvation and disease
And they’re a bunch of feckin’ prods.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 05:27 PMWhat is far from surprising is that a silly piece of immature satire has most of the non-Catholic posters in a frenzy. ‘Aye he’s right, always thought that’. Insight for the brain-dead.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 05:56 PMI hate to remind the bigots of the IRA but their genocidial campaign against Protestants pre-dated the birth of the Rev Ian Paisley by hundreds of years.
1916?
Declining eductional standards amyone?
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 06:10 PMCahal
‘Vaguely amusing. School newspaper standard.’I agree entirely. It’s not very funny, nor should it be taken as very offensive. Just schoolboyish stuff really.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 06:11 PMSuperb inverted-bigotry from Paul and others. Any criticism/piss taking of Sinn Fein is clearly sectarian....dear help us all.
Anybody who accuses Newt of going easy on Prod bigotry and hypocrisy either hasn’t looked at his work, or is blinded by prejudice themselves.
http://www.portadownnews.com/13Jun05.htm
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 06:17 PMThe Fields, 1916 was hundreds of years ago? Thank you for not contributing yet again with another stupid sock puppet.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 06:21 PMBest ease up on the shinners - last time they felt this picked on they started shooting people and planting bombs.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 07:00 PM#
I hate to remind the bigots of the IRA but their genocidial campaign against Protestants pre-dated the birth of the Rev Ian Paisley by hundreds of years.
Can anyone explain to be why SF/SDLP/FF are in favour of further integration of ROI and NI into a federal Europe whilst opposing it within the UK apart from naked sectarianism interest!
Posted by Sam Hanna on May 31, 2007 @ 06:14 PMPosted by on May 31, 2007 @ 07:06 PMonce again The Fields, I wasn’t aware that the IRA had been going for hundreds of years. Maybe you should inform the hundreds of historians that say the IRA was formed just before the Easter Rising. Did the IRA also steal the templars gold and destroy Atlantis?
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 08:17 PM#5 Posted by Sam Hanna on May 31, 2007 @ 06:14 PM
Why should I?
You can see from above it was Sam Hanna who made the claim.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 08:23 PMToken Dissent
“Anybody who accuses Newt of going easy on Prod bigotry and hypocrisy either hasn’t looked at his work, or is blinded by prejudice themselves. “
He doesnt slag prods, he slags working class prods. He rarely puts the boot into his own type. The middle classes are hardly immune to sectarianism. But its no craic making fun of rich people.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 08:28 PMI can’t abide people who put the boot into their own type, whatever their type. It’s such an lazy ploy for ‘respect’. And let’s face it, deep down we all feel a secret sense of contempt for people who betray their own tribe.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 08:42 PMGreat stuff from Newt, as usual he’s absolutely spot on in his highlighting of the nationalist terrorists bigotry and hatred. Comments made above just go to prove how squarely he hit the nail on the head.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 08:56 PMHere’s my tuppenceworth as someone who was quite pleased at SF’s setback and ripe for some biting satire.
It was a generally amusing piece from Mr.Emerson albeit with a few jarring subliminal undertones.
First of all I supect that behind the joker’s mask he is trying to peddle , a la Waugh/Harris/Myers, the discredited Hartist school of history ( BTW if you’re reading this Darth I’m not going to be drawn into a three digit thread ).
Secondly behind the comedic facade he comes across as a ‘stage 5’ man.
Let me explain ‘stage 5ism’
The longer-serving Sluggerites will remember that about a year ago there was thread after thread after thread on the issue of alleged ROI anti-Prod sectarianism (or the alleged lack thereof).After a while a certain predictable choreography became apparent:
Stage 1.The ROI is/was an anti-Prod sectarian hellhole.
Stage 2.No it’s not.
Stage 3.Yes it is.Look at the catastrophic drop in numbers since the inception of the state.
Stage 4.The percentage of Protestants in the general population has been rising since the 1960’s.
Stage 5.That’s just because of all those blacks swarming in from Nigeria.
The next stage ,among many,involved pointing out that this only became relevant from about 2000 onwards etc., etc.
Newt,with a court jester’s pirouette,has arrived bang on stage 5.
This is not , by the way , an attempt to derail the thread.Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 09:21 PM‘It’s not very funny, nor should it be taken as very offensive. Just schoolboyish stuff really. ‘
Agreed, just very silly, the satirical attempt falls flat. Newt, pull up your socks, I expect better than that.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 09:37 PMIf one were to take Emerson’s sneering contempt for his neighbors and adjoin it with say - a fiery fundamentalist preacher and an impoverished, embittered, fearful community it is not hard to see how the Bombay Street riots could happen.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 10:21 PMCertainly, when I read this, I had to be restrained from going straight out and starting the Troubles all over again.
No, hang on, that’s a completely mental thing to say. Mentalist.
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 10:39 PMI hate to remind the bigots of the IRA but their genocidial (sic) campaign against Protestants pre-dated the birth of the Rev Ian Paisley by hundreds of years.
Yes this is what the problem is.
England has been at war with France on and off for 100s of years, but if an Englishman were to induce his neighbours to burn down the houses of Frenchmen, he would be prosecuted for incitement. Once the war is over, it is over. People who try to start it up again are a menace. If I complained of an English politician trying to do this, I don’t think anyone in England would call me an IRA bigot. The worse they would call me would be a policeman.
The reported words in the Shankill Road, coming at the very moment when the whole province was in relative normality, were less than helpful. I don’t say IP shouldn’t be 1st minister, I don’t say he’s any worse than the 2nd minister, I say that this sort of thing, rather than some annoying Protestant habit of hedge clipping, is what helps SF pull in the votes.
(PS didn’t someone say Aonghus Ă“ Snodaigh is a Protestant?)
Posted by on May 31, 2007 @ 10:50 PM
