CrisisJam

Al Jazeera/Naomi Wolf - The middle east feminist revolution

Maman Poulet - Minister Burton

Maman Poulet - When you are in a hole stop digging

The Anti-Room/leannich - The W-Word

Since the foundation of the state, no matter how corrupt or incompetent, Fianna Fáil’s ability to command loyalty, to bounce back and even to engender in the electorate a strange kind of sly regard for their own brown envelope crookedness seemed permanent. Last week’s election has been called everything from a democratic revolution to a mandate for austerity.

As the snow brought Dublin to a standstill last winter and the outgoing Fianna Fáil government drew up a savage budget, one demonstration stood out. The Spectacle of Defiance and Hope lit up the city with a carnival atmosphere, youthful vibrancy and imagination. Protest organiser and community activist John Bissett gives us an inside account.

Reform and tax-tinkering can seem feeble when stacked up beside the overhwleming structural and social inequalities in Irish society. Did the ballot box riot of 2011 merely channel genuine anger into a cosmetic shift from one party’s austerity to another? The Irish crisis will not be solved by this election or the next, argues Dara McHugh.

One of the more interesting questions to be asked about this election is: Where did all the Fianna Fáilers go? Not, it seems, to H&M to buy themselves blue shirts. Having crunched the numbers, Harry Browne finds that much of the Fianna Fáil vote went left, a result that gives the lie to talk of a solidly conservative centre-right majority in Ireland.

In last week's General Election, fewer than one in five people who cast a ballot lent their support to the outgoing parties of government. While widely cast as a 'democratic revolution', this outcome will in fact barely alter the disastrous course upon which we are set.

When it comes to debt, Ireland still has cards left to play and time left in which to play them. Once again showing us that there are economic alternatives, Andy Storey argues that our Father Ted approach to economics is giving Wall Street a good laugh.

One of the more eye-catching trends in last week’s General Election was the emergence of the radical left as a viable political force. The success of five candidates from the United Left Alliance was arguably the most significant expression of a radicalisation of the Irish electorate. Here Sinéad Kennedy examines the potential of the ULA and suggests that the recent electoral successes mark an historic opportunity for the advance of the Irish left.

Of all Fianna Fáil's defeats in the elections, perhaps the one of greatest historical significance was its being wiped off the map of the capital city, with only one utterly discredited TD remaining. Being a 'Dublin rogue' was once enough for the loyal city's population to forgive just about anything, but that knowing regard is gone. Donal Fallon gives us a sense of the historical significance of the Dublin defeat.

With a stronger Labour tradition and a stronger right-wing tradition, there are many lessons to be learned from our nearest geographical neighbours. Today, with a conservative leadership and a vibrant student resistance movement, Ceasefire’s Omayr Rehmaan Ghani gives us a valuable British perspective on the limitations and possibilities that may lie ahead.