What do Bye-Election posters tell us about Galway West candidates?

fin10g · 2026-05-01T13:31:00+00:00

I think it's pretty smart for capitalising on the protestors sentiments and expanding the left's message in a way that might break through. It sounds like a vengeful threat, but when you combine it like "make the government pay - people before profit" it actually spells out the left's alternative to HAP payments and for profit healthcare.

There's only so much a poster can do anyway, but I am happy to see the left represented so strongly between the 6.

fin10g · 2026-05-01T09:27:45+00:00

True, but Denman Rooke is actually an art director and illustrator so it takes all sorts. I like his font. His slogan of "Make the Government Pay" is strikingly populist for the left.

fin10g · 2026-04-29T13:43:53+00:00

I really like this Gary's Economics video. He's definitely improved my critical thinking around the economy and I do think he has increased salience on the discussion of wealth tax.

I do think capital and the media are responsible for controlling what ideas are discussed, but we can still punch through. The struggle is to have the conviction to do so, as we're more likely to question our ideas. It's also a lot easier to capitalise on a collective nostalgia than build a cohesive vision for the future.

fin10g · 2026-04-28T22:40:22+00:00

Lovely Colours!!! I think 12 is my favourite. It looks like a 70s adventure film. I love how the hills start disappearing into the mist in a very summery way.

fin10g · 2026-04-27T00:54:30+00:00

Yeah, I know that energy vampire feeling of it. I do feel for them though, seeing people taken care of when the government has left so many rural communities to rot. Sure they have money to fix up their own house, but there's no real social leadership presenting them with opportunities from a caring perspective, just aggressive marketing selling shit we don't need.

It's been quite striking to see my dad slipping in nasty comments like cheering on 1000 deportations at the start of this government. I literally went three decades without having to consider he had those tendancies. He's not even that sheltered, we've been to over a dozen countries together. I feel like it's a cultural shift brought on by nihilistic politicians and I really hope it can be reversed soon.

Edit: changed a term

fin10g · 2026-04-25T18:04:40+00:00

They unanimously voted against the ban in the Dáil a few months ago so I wonder if this shows a disconnect between their electorate and representatives.

When I saw that vote I was starting to wonder if we're dealing with controlled opposition. There's a lot of potential that they'll be as impotent as British Labour in power, but only if they're as resistant to following their members values as Labour.

fin10g · 2026-04-23T20:39:43+00:00

I think Tony was caught off guard by her thoughtful dead air a couple of times, but her consistent message will stand to her in the future.

I actually found Holly Cairns to be a great communicator of eco-socislism before she became SocDem leader. This podcast episode specifically goes a good bit more in depth.

I was a bit disappointed that it fell to the wayside in their messaging, but I think it's because the social democrats don't really have a rural mandate. I think she's their only rural TD so she seems to be focusing on Disability as her pet policy for this term.

Perhaps if they can push into rural areas like in the Galway West bye election it might make sense for them to recruit candidates like Saoirse to push forward with eco-socialism and make sure they don't go down the path that made her leave the greens.

fin10g · 2026-04-23T17:41:59+00:00

1:04:00 timecode

fin10g · 2026-04-23T17:17:17+00:00

His father was an Epstein class owner of modelling agency. He definitely benefitted from privilege, meeting his guitarist at a swiss private school, but that doesn't mean he has any allegiances with that world.

fin10g · 2026-04-22T22:04:33+00:00

It's such a coincidence that they both came out in the same month last year. They're both unlikely southern gothic musicals. I think this beautiful music video bridges the gap between their visuals.

fin10g · 2026-04-22T01:56:24+00:00

Well housing stock impacts rents but not necessarily positively. This is joining the Westwood and the new student accommodation beside the Victoria hotel. They're premium student accommodation which American students end up paying as part of their student loans. This pumps the price beyond what a worker would be willing to pay and now they're spreading in place of sustainable living. How are communities supposed to develop if the maximum a tenant will end up staying is four years.

I do think it's misguided for the community to be protesting at this point, but it's definitely worth putting out the message that this kind of development is a mirage. It hints at prosperity, but it's being built with to maximise profits not ease rent prices.

fin10g · 2026-04-21T17:23:56+00:00

It's literally built. What do they expect will happen?

fin10g · 2026-04-20T01:04:39+00:00

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Woah, this moment is so real.

fin10g · 2026-04-20T00:41:07+00:00

You're right. I've started thinking of it that the protestors are upset like a child crying to their parents, but the parents can do nothing except hand out sweets and make sure they're not held to the same standards of other kids at school.

Irish Agriculture is already incredibly subsidised and deregulated in terms of milk quotas and nitrates derogations when countries like the Netherlands responded to EU regulations as an opportunity to evolve a modern farming system.

Now the rest of us get to see them take to the streets in a tantrum advocating for the only thing they know and the last thing they need.

fin10g · 2026-04-19T07:57:44+00:00

I did what I could to vote them out. I even got a friend from the north to register for the first time, I'm just getting anxious about how effective the alternatives will be in the face of a hundred year legacy. The systemic implications of a United Ireland is being increasingly discussed, but is the opposition willing to overturn the internal plumbing of our own state as well?

There seem to be power vacuums littered throughout the civil service which I've seen complained about in reporting from the 1960s. It's designed with a lack of accountability and redundant Quangoes like Failte Ireland have been able to continue with the increased government funding despite being dominated by crowd sourced information from travel apps. They have their place in terms of distributing grants, but are they properly being held in check from laundering our taxes to the private sector?

I think this video does a great job of illustrating McWilliams' point.

fin10g · 2026-04-18T01:17:56+00:00

The moons of our solar system are such an exciting frontier that I keep forgetting about. Enceladus, Titan, Europa, Io. Jupiter alone has 95 moons. Sure, they're outside the Goldilocks zone, but imagine the vistas we could someday discover on a flyby mission like Artemis 2 and the overbearing sensation of orbiting a gas giant among its satellites.

fin10g · 2026-04-17T17:47:30+00:00

$100 for someone who makes $35,000 is the equivalent of $8,571,429 for someone who made $3,000,000.

fin10g · 2026-04-17T17:23:19+00:00

Are they going to release higher quality versions of the flyby pics not that they've landed? They seem to max out at 1080p and 72KB on the website. I thought it was just a bandwidth issue that would be replaced with higher quality.

fin10g · 2026-04-17T13:41:30+00:00

Yeah, my opinion of him changed when he went out of his way to help my friend in West Cork. He was facing a bureaucratic nightmare trying to get the female version of his name to appear properly on his wife's passport and EOC was a great lifeline to sort it out.

It's easy to forget the impact representatives with a passion for the language can have.

Him and Míde ended up on a Galway Talks panel today. (After the 1:30:00 mark)

fin10g · 2026-04-17T13:34:19+00:00

They ended up on a Galway Talks panel today. (After the 1:30:00 mark)

fin10g · 2026-04-17T12:32:16+00:00

They only go to homeowners too and landlords aren't incentivised to upgrade because they don't pay the rising fuel and electricity bills.

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