Sinn Fein Loses

This has gotta hurt Gerry Adams.

Just three weeks after forming an historic coalition with Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein has suffered a demoralising electoral setback in the Irish Republic.

Sinn Fein wanted to double its representation in Ireland's parliament, the Dail, putting it in government on both sides of the Irish border. Some polls had predicted that the party could win up to 15 seats, but it only managed to cling on to four of the five seats it held before polling day. The party narrowly escaped losing its only remaining seat....

Read the whole thing here.

Good news for Bertie, though:

[T]he Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, was the clear winner. His Fianna Fail party gained 78 seats, just six short of 84 - the figure needed to form a government in the 166-strong Dail.

In other words, Sinn Fein is completely irrelevant to the Republic's political process. Not really surprising. Most of the Irish don't care that much about what goes on in Ulster and that's Sinn Fein's defining issue.

At Last!!!

Der Spiegel reports:

Ian Paisley meeting Gerry Adams? It was an event of lion-laying-down-with-lamb proportions, as Paisley, a Protestant minister with a taste for fiery Biblical rhetoric, might describe it -- even though each side would doubtlessly argue over who was the lion and who was the lamb.

The meeting was certainly a historic breakthrough for Northern Ireland. Arch-rivals Paisley and Adams have long been icons of the Protestant and Catholic sides respectively in the long and bitter struggle over who should rule Northern Ireland. Paisley is the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which wants to keep Northern Ireland's ties to Britain, while Adams is president of Sinn Fein, whose ultimate goal is a united Ireland.

The two men held their first ever face-to-face meeting Monday in the Northern Ireland Assembly buildings in Stormont, Belfast. However the two arch-rivals did not shake hands, according to officials from both sides.

Afterwards they announced a deal to forge a power-sharing administration by May 8, which will lead to a new era of home rule for the province.

Read it here.

Of course nothing is final yet, and much has to be worked out, but this is incredibly great news!