Thanks Fionn. Good points. / Re Dev's party & Collins' Free Staters, here's a good tongue-in-cheek piece from The Irish Times, Monday:


Bertie employs handshakes to crush SF rebels By Frank McNally

More than 24 hours after he retained his Dáil seat, the Taoiseach finally turned up at the RDS count centre last night, and in doing so reclaimed the building from Sinn Féin. Not since 1916 had a strategic Dublin position been so grimly held by republican rebels as during yesterday's recount for the seat won narrowly by Bertie Ahern's running-mate.

Sinn Féin had manned the barricades - the barricades lining the Dublin Central count area - from early morning, outflanking the once-impregnable Fianna Fáil tallying operation. The defenders of Dermot Fitzpatrick's 74-vote majority fought bravely all day, but were hopelessly outnumbered.

There was never much prospect of Nicky Kehoe overturning the result. But the triumph of failure remains a powerful concept in the republican movement; and, while there was still a chance, the Sinn Féiners made their presence felt.

Gerry Adams was there most of the day, along with Mitchel McLaughlin, Bairbre de Brún and Pat Doherty. At one point, as the recount continued below, the party leaders even held a round-table meeting on the balcony.

The insurgents would probably have run the Tricolour up the RDS pole, except that, luckily, it was there already. But this didn't stop supporters waving it for the cameras all weekend as if it was an act of provocation in the South.

As the recount dragged on, however, the rebels were coming under increasing pressure from reality. And shortly before 8 p.m. last night they surrendered, by the traditional method of carrying their defeated candidate shoulder-high and singing "Here we go, here we go, here we go."

When the rival supporters lined up together for the formal declaration, the scene seemed set for a confrontation. In scenes reminiscent of the 1920s, there were loud shouts of "C'mon the Shinners" and "Up Fianna Fáil", while competing banners claimed that each was the real republican party.

But hopes of a moral victory for Sinn Féin disappeared with the news that the Taoiseach was on the way, carrying the weapon which had destroyed Fine Gael and routed all opposition to the Government. Sure enough, when Mr Ahern arrived, he immediately deployed his notorious handshaking capability on all and sundry. Several leading Sinn Féin members were on the receiving end.

And when one of the suddenly quiet Kehoe supporters remarked: "Fair play to him, he shook hands with Nicky", it was clear that they, like the rest of the country, had been Bertied. Accompanied by his daughters and surrounded by supporters, including the builder Joe Burke, the Taoiseach looked tired but happy.

Earlier, he congratulated his supporters on winning 4,000 votes "in the Taoiseach's constituency". But there was general relief when the threat of a legal challenge to the result receded. For anyone with a sense of history, the idea of republicans heading for the Four Courts is not a happy one.