Guest post by Peter Mair (posted by David Farrell, Feb 28, 2011) This election goes down not only as the most volatile in Irish democratic history, but also as one of the most volatile elections in postwar Europe. Aggregate electoral volatility is conventionally measured with the simple Pedersen index, which adds the absolute values of…
By Jane Suiter The campaign we have just witnessed is unusual in Irish party political terms and may be one of the first where national policy has played an important part. There is little doubt when we examine movements in opinion polls over the course of the campaign that Fine Gael ran the most effective…
Eoin O’Malley (20 February, 2011) The three most recent polls by Red-C, Millward Brown and Ipsos-mrbi in today’s Sunday Business Post and Sunday Independent and tomorrow’s Irish Times are broadly consistent and are also consistent with recent trends. Fine Gael’s position is solidifying (not surging) and Labour is slipping slightly (not falling). The Greens look unlikely to return…
Eoin O’Malley (19 February, 2011) We have a tendency to see new polls and take them as indicating some real change in the fortunes of the parties since the last comparable poll was taken, when possibly much of the variation is caused by differences in samples – the luck of the draw. One way to alleviate the…
Eoin O’Malley (15 February, 2011) There’s is some degree of agreement in the opinion polls of all types (different companies, candidate based ballot paper questions and party questions, local polls and national polls) that over the course of the campaign Fine Gael has trended upwards and Labour downwards. As we can see from the Red…
Adrian Kavanagh, 15th February 2011 The Millward-Brown opinion poll, published in the 16th February edition of The Irish Independent estimates party support as follows: Fianna Fail 12%, Fine Gael 38%, Labour 23%, Green Party 3%, Sinn Fein 10%, Others 16%. Based solely on these poll figures, my uniform-swing constituency level analysis models seat estimates for the…
By Mel Farrell (Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) scholar, Department of History, NUI Maynooth Election 2011 carries the potential to realign Irish politics. As such, this electoral contest promises to take its place among the critical elections of Irish history in 1918, 1922 and 1932. Going on the opinion polls,…
Eoin O’Malley(4th February, 2011) The national polls carried out by reputable agencies such as Red C or Ipsos-mrbi are reliable as guides of the likely percentages the parties would get if the election were held at that time. In the middle of a campaign they are even better guides of the eventual result because potential…
Adrian Kavanagh, 1st-2nd February 2011 The opinion poll in the 2nd February edition of the Irish Independent estimated party support as follows: FF 16%, FG 30%, LAB 24%, GP 1%, SF 13%, OTH 15%. Based solely on these poll figures, my constituency level analysis estimates party seat levels as follows: Fianna Fail 23, Fine Gael…
Adrian Kavanagh, 29 January 2011 Sunday Business Post-Red C opinion poll January 30: FF 16 (-1), FG 33 (-1), Lab 23 (-2), Greens 2 (NC), SF 13 (-2), Others 15 (+5) On the basis of these figures, my constituency-level analysis of the poll estimates seat levels as follows: Fianna Fail 24, Fine Gael 68, Labour 40, Green Party 0, Sinn Fein 14, Others 20 (including 11 “Left”-leaning Others seats)
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