Posted by Jim on March 4, 2017
John Manley. Irish News.Belfast.Saturday, March 4, 2017
SINN Féin was last night celebrating a resurgence at the polls with the party expected to close the gap to just one seat between it and the DUP.
An increase in turnout of close to 10 per cent translated into a surge in support for new northern leader Michelle O’Neill and her party. Transfers helped the SDLP salvage what initially looked like being a poor performance, with a seat for former publican Pat Catney and the likelihood of veteran John Dallat returning to Stormont leaving the party at 12 seats.
It was a different story for the DUP and Arlene Foster, however, who may face a challenge to her leadership. She lost the party’s chairman Maurice Morrow, chief whip Trevor Clarke and former minister Nelson McCausland.
In a significant blow, unionism lost its overall majority in the assembly for the first time, falling from 56 seats after last May’s election to an expected 40 this morning.
Sinn Féin saw its share of first preference votes increase 3.9 percentage points to 27.9 per cent – taking it to within less than 1,200 votes of the DUP.
With the number of seats at Stormont reduced from 108 to 90, republicans were expected to lose some MLAs and one casualty was former independent Oliver McMullan in East Antrim. But despite that loss, Sinn Féin was on course to be returned with the 27 seats it secured last May.
It was also an encouraging performance for the SDLP, which despite losing Alex Attwood in West Belfast and Richie McPhillips in Fermanagh-South Tyrone maintained its 12 seats, and superseded the UUP as Stormont’s third largest party.
Colum Eastwood’s party also saw the return of former deputy leader Dolores Kelly, who regained the Upper Bann seat she lost last year.
The DUP was on course to lose the greatest number of seats, dropping below the 30 MLAs which enables it to deploy a petition of concern. Coming in under the threshold that gives it the power veto legislation in the assembly could prove Arlene Foster’s undoing, and having oversaw the first decline in her party’s vote is likely to face a leadership challenge.
Among the notable losses for Stormont’s largest party were its chairman Maurice Morrow, who failed to get elected alongside his party leader Arlene Foster in Fermanagh-South Tyrone.
One-time Stormont culture minister Nelson McCausland failed to get re-elected in North Belfast, while former junior minister Emma Little-Pengelly was in trouble in South Belfast. Stormont’s last speaker Robin Newton, who last autumn was embroiled in the Charter NI controversy, was also struggling last night to retain his East Belfast seat.
The Ulster Unionists’ hopes that the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal would enable it to make significant inroads into the DUP’s vote proved ill-founded and cost Mike Nesbitt his leadership. Despite being reelected in Strangford, the former UTV anchorman saw fit to fall on his sword hours before counting had concluded.
Among the UUP scalps were former regional development minister Danny Kennedy in Newry and Armagh and Sandra Overend in Mid Ulster.
Alliance retained its eight MLAs in the assembly and came close to gaining a seat in South Down.
Gerry Carroll kept People Before Profit’s seat in West Belfast but his party colleague Eamonn McCann failed to get reelected in Foyle. The Greens were on course to keep the party’s two seats in North Down and South Belfast.
Whereas in the previous assembly unionist parties had an overall majority, unionist representation was last night looking like 40 out of 90 MLAs. Nationalist parties account for 39 of Stormont’s seats, while others have 11 seats.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams marked his party’s performance by saying nationalists in the north had shown that they were opposed to Brexit.
Mr. Adams said a special designation for the region was the only way to prevent a land frontier on the island.
“Whatever your position is on the constitutional issue, that the only way to stop a land frontier between a European state and the British state on this island is to make sure there is a special designated status within the European Union for this part of Ireland,” he said.
Mr. Adams said the result was a vote of confidence in his party’s position.
“It is a vote for Irish unity, a vote for us together as a people,” he said.
“As Ian Paisley famously told Martin McGuinness, we don’t need Englishmen to govern us.”
He said it was a huge vote of thanks to Martin McGuinness, whose resignation as deputy first minister in January prompted the collapse of power-sharing.
Colum Eastwood said Sinn Féin were the “net beneficiaries” of a huge nationalist turnout intent on punishing Mrs. Foster and the DUP.
“The Sinn Féin vote has gone up very highly, which is a result of the overall context of this election, which has been pitched as a battle between the DUP and Sinn Féin,” he said.
“Those of us in the middle have been clearly squeezed.”
Mr. Eastwood failed to top the poll in his Foyle constituency – cradle of the SDLP – where Sinn Fein’s Elisha McCallion romped home almost 2,000 votes over the quota.
Putting a brave face on the result, Mr. Eastwood claimed his party was not interested in topping polls but will be happy to increase its vote and retain its two seats in Derry.
The SDLP leader believes his party support will remain steady.
“Our overall vote is probably in and around where it was, it is just that Sinn Fein have been the net beneficiaries of a huge nationalist turnout to punish Arlene Foster.
“That seems very, very clear now.”
Posted by Jim on March 3, 2017
Sinn Fein has attained its highest ever share of the vote in the North
of Ireland and came within touching distance of outpolling all of the
other parties as votes were tallied today.
But the headline story of the election may be the resignation of Mike
Nesbitt, the leader of the Ulster Unionist party, who quit this evening
despite marginally increasing his party’s vote share. He stepped down
as their unionist rivals in the DUP maintained their top spot amid
public outrage over corruption and bigotry scandals.
In a news conference this evening, Mr Nesbitt said he had been
reflecting on the results and said the “buck stops here.”
For the past three months, he said, he had been criticising another
party leader for not taking responsibility. He said it would be the
“height of hypocrisy” if he did not take full responsibility for his
party’s poor election performance.
Mr Nesbitt said: “I led into this election. I was the one who argued it
should be a referendum on RHI and on ten years of the DUP and Sinn Fein
leading our Executive government.
“I am the one who suggested in a normal society people would vote on
performance and that the DUP and Sinn Fein did not earn another
mandate. And I’m the one who said this should be Northern Ireland’s
first post-sectarian election based on the economy and education,
health and housing, and that I had a different vision.”
He added: “But the electorate disagreed. They certainly did not give me
a mandate big enough for me to feel justified in continuing in this
position, so I shall not continue in this position.”
After adding the results of first preferences, the DUP won 28.9%, down
1.1% — only marginally above Sinn Fein’s historic 27.9%, an increase
of 3.9%. The UUP reached 12.9% votes, up 0.3%, while the nationalist
SDLP won 11.9% votes, down 0.1%.
As the results came in, both DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein
president called for respect for the mandates their parties had been
given by the electorate.
Arriving at the Belfast count centre, Mr Adams said: “It is a vote and
mandate that will have to be respected by the two governments [British
and Irish], by all the other parties… for an end to the old status
quo, for a new beginning as to how we do our business here.”
He also said the results were a vote of confidence in Irish unification
and his party’s position on Brexit.
Sinn Fein has called for a vote on reunification and, in the interim,
for the Six Counties of Ireland under British rule to receive a special
designated status within the EU after Britain’s exit from the bloc.
He said: “It is a vote for Irish unity, a vote for us together as a
people. As Ian Paisley famously told Martin McGuinness, we don’t need
Englishmen to govern us.”
Mr Adams also criticised the DUP’s behaviour in the last government.
“They lost the run of themselves.. They got themselves in a little
bubble. That bubble has been punctured by Martin McGuinness and by
others.”
He also suggested that the DUP nominate someone other than Ms Foster to
act as the unionist leader in the next Executive.
However, Foster was typically uncompromising. Speaking following her
election at the Omagh count centre, Ms Foster said Sinn Fein must
respect the mandate “that has been given to me”.
“I think it’s very clear that [the election] was absolutely not about
the RHI [corruption scandal], it may have been the excuse but it
certainly wasn’t the cause of the election.
“The cause of the election was Sinn Fein and republicanism wanting to
rerun [last year’s] election… they have mobilised their vote in a
very effective way.”
Ms Foster said she was pleased that the DUP vote was still the largest
party in terms of votes cast.
“It is very clear in terms of unionism that it is the DUP that speaks
for unionism.”
But there have been key setbacks for the DUP and it still remains
unclear if the party will retain the key threshold of thirty seats in
order to retain their veto over political change. In one setback, the
notoriously bigoted Nelson McCausland failed to hold his seat in north
Belfast as the constituency looked that it might return a historic
majority of three nationalist seats out of five.
Meanwhile, the vote share of the cross-community Alliance Party rose
significantly, while People before Profit, despite fielding more
candidates, saw their share fall, losing the seat of party leader,
veteran Derry socialist Eamonn McCann, after less than a year.
The SDLP’s Justin McNulty attributed the strong Sinn Fein vote to the
bigotry and sectarianism of Arlene Foster. “Her dismissive remarks had
people out in droves,” he said. SDLP leader Colum Eastwood admitted
Sinn Fein were the “net beneficiaries” of public outrage at the actions
of the Stormont government.
“The Sinn Fein vote has gone up very highly, which is a result of the
overall context of this election, which has been pitched as a battle
between the DUP and Sinn Fein,” he said. “Those of us in the middle
have been clearly squeezed.”
Another historic success for Sinn Fein announced this evening was the
success of Philip McGuigan in topping the poll in the unionist
heartland of North Antrim, synonymous with the name of unionist
firebrand Ian Paisley.
There was also a shock Sinn Fein success in South Down, a traditional
bastion of the SDLP, where the party topped the poll as the SF vote
climbed above that of the SDLP. There were also prospects of unexpected
gains in East Derry and Fermanagh-South Tyrone.
Following this election, Sinn Fein and the DUP will have three weeks to
resolve a wide gulf of differences and form a new administration.
Otherwise, the London government has threatened to reimpose full,
direct British rule.
With 53 of the 90 seats filled as the examination of the voters’ lower
order preferences continues, the current tally of the parties is:
Sinn Fein 27.9% (+3.9%) 22 seats DUP 28.1% (-1.1%) 14 seats UUP 12.9%
(+0.3%) 7 seats Alliance 9.1% (+2.1%) 5 seats SDLP 11.9% (-0.1%) 4
seats People Before Profit 1.8% (-0.2%) 1 seat TUV 2.6% (-0.9%) 0 seats
Green 2.3% (-0.4%) 0 seats
Some of the 18 constituency counts are set to extend into Saturday. An
update on the results will be included in the weekly publication of
Irish Republican News to be published tomorrow.
Posted by Jim on
BROTHER IN NEED
18-year Veteran Firefighter Paul Fazio Ladder 127
Needs a kidney transplant
Potential Donors should be in good physical condition and should not have High Blood Pressure or Diabetes.
Anyone who’s interested to see if they are a match for Paul should contact: Steve Knapik, the living donor coordinator at Stony Brook Hospital, 631-444-6944.
Please pass the information around to friends & family.
Posted by Jim on
The snap 2017 Assembly election has been a good one for Sinn Fein, with
the party so far holding on to its seats in all constituencies and
showing particular strength in the traditional republican heartlands.
The largest unionist party, the DUP, has avoided suffering serious
damage despite being hit by repeated corruption scandals, and could hold
above the 30 seat mark required to hold on to its veto in the Stormont
Assembly. The future of party leader Arlene Foster is, however,
increasingly in doubt amid rumours of a potential heave.
But as one in six seats were eliminated from the Assembly this year, a
decimation of the weakest candidates has hit across the board with the
nationalist SDLP, unionist UUP and DUP and socialist PBP all lined up to
book losses amid an overall turnout of 65%, a sharp increase on last
year.
In contrast, Sinn Fein looks like it could hold on to virtually all of
their seats. Party campaigners said they believed that voters who have
fallen away from the organisation in recent years had returned due to
the party’s more hardline statements against the DUP and the ‘status
quo’.
The party’s female candidates put in a particularly strong performance,
with new party leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill, topping the poll
in Mid-Ulster by more than 10,000 votes, and with all three SF
candidates are set to be elected comfortably.
A new Sinn Fein candidate, Orlaithi Flynn, topped the poll in Belfast
West where all four SF candidates are also set to be elected amid the
demise of high profile SDLP candidate, Alex Attwood. Another female SF
candidate, Caoimhe Archibald, has topped the poll in East Derry, the
first time the party has done so.
Despite a 9% swing to Sinn Fein from the socialist People before Profit
in west Belfast, their candidate, Gerry Carroll, looks to have held on
to his seat. In Foyle, however, the People before Profit candidate Eamon
McCann looks set to lose out as both the Sinn Fein and SDLP have put in
a strong performance there.
In South Down, Sinn Fein overtook the SDLP for the first time on the
back of a 7% increase in votes. Sinn Fein’s Northern Chairman Declan
Kearney saw a surge in his vote tally to allow him to top the poll in
South Antrim, the first time the party has done so since Mitchel
McLaughlin in 2007.
On the unionist side, the DUP could be facing losses in both south
Belfast and north Belfast as a result of a fall-off in loyalist votes,
with high profile candidate Emma Little Pengelly set to lose her seat in
the south of the city. The UUP is struggling to hold seats west of the
river Bann, where the overall nationalist vote appears to be
significantly up, and it is in a battle to hold seats against the DUP in
the unionist heartlands east of the Bann.
In contrast, Alliance leader Naomi Long topped the poll and was elected
on the first count in east Belfast. The moderate unionist party was
optimistic it would hold its seats and possibly make a gain.
The following is the current seat tally after 15 of 90 seats declared:
SF 7, DUP 5, Alliance 2, UUP 1. Further updates will be published here
as they become available.
Posted by Jim on
IRISH-AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH, 2017
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Irish Americans have made an indelible mark on the United States. From Dublin, California, to Limerick, Maine, from Emerald Isle, North Carolina, to Shamrock, Texas, we are reminded of the more than 35 million Americans of Irish descent who contribute every day to all facets of life in the United States. Over generations, millions of Irish have crossed the ocean in search of the American Dream, and their contributions continue to enrich our country today.
From our four Irish-born Founding Fathers to Thomas Francis Meagher, the Irish revolutionary who became an American hero after leading the Irish Brigade during the Civil War, Irish immigrants have shaped our history in enduring ways. Throughout the centuries, hard-working Irish Americans have contributed to America’s innovation and prosperity — tilling the farms of Appalachia, working the looms of New England textile mills, and building transcontinental railroads — often overcoming poverty and discrimination and inspiring Americans from all walks of life with their indomitable and entrepreneurial spirit in the process. From these early beginnings rose generations of Irish Americans who continue to lead our cities, drive our economy, and protect and defend the land they embrace as their own.
American culture carries an unmistakably Irish-American imprint. Our literature, cinema, music, dance, sports, and visual arts are filled with the names and influence of great Irish Americans.
Irish Americans should be proud of the deep cultural, historical, and familial ties that have contributed to the strength of our vibrant transatlantic relationship with Ireland. As we honor the past during Irish-American Heritage Month, we also celebrate a bright future of friendship and cooperation for generations to come.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 2017 as Irish-American Heritage Month. I call upon all Americans to celebrate the achievements and contributions of Irish Americans to our Nation with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and programs.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-first.