Election Special: Public meeting and Podcast, May 17th/18th 2024
'Someone has come us with a beautiful slogan:'Tell the parties the party;s over!' How many of them can we stop from getting seats? That should be the objective of the Irish people in this election.'
Banner and Photograph by Richard Kelly
The Party’s Over!
Silver Eel Meeting, 17/05/24 (with Thomas Sheridan)
A public conversation with my good friend, Thomas Sheridan, in the Silver Eel, a fine lakeside bar and restaurant in the heart of County Roscommon, more or less equidistant between Elphin, Roosky and Strokestown, though the postal address ties it to the latter town. It’s a perfect location, probably inaccessible without GPS or local knowledge, a truly ‘hidden heartland’ with barges in the harbour of the Grange Lough, which virtually laps against the bar counter. There’s a great bunch of people here, mostly young people and families. The event was actually first mooted by Paul Hanley from Roosky, himself affiliated to the National Party but a big supporter of mine — an ‘ecumenical matter’, for sure, and rare enough these days, I’m finding.
The event was recorded and streamed by Hello Irlandia.
(By the way, the election is inadvertently given in the description as ]une 17th rather than June 7th. I hope that’s wrong — I don’t think I have that much left in the tank!)
Audio only
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Resolving Reality Podcast, broadcast via Twitter Space, Saturday May 18th 2024
I had neither clue nor confidence in advance as to whether or how this recording was going to happen, but my hosts, the lads on Resolving Reality, seemed confident that they could overcome my Luddism and have me on air by a minute past eight. What was planned to last 90 minutes ran on for over three hours of me speaking with Emmet and Keitho and guest panellist, Mike Connell — and a dozen others. I felt it was pretty illuminating and constructive, despite a couple of naysayers saying nay near the end, who seemed to think that anyone speaking other than themselves amounts to an ‘echo chamber’.