Sixteen days from now, on June 7, voters in the Republic go to the polls to elect nearly 1,000 councillors and 14 MEPs in three enormous constituencies.

Since the British government, aided by their DUP dupes, dragged the north out of the EU we will be spectators as in the upcoming British general election, not being part of Britain or electing anyone from a British party. However, that doesn’t mean we won’t be affected by the results of the Euro election or the later British one.

In their previous outing in 2019, Sinn Féin had an awful election both at council and European Parliament. This time, if opinion polls are correct, the party will make substantial gains, doubling the number of council seats and gaining three, possibly four seats in Brussels.

Much will depend on transfers since there are 73 candidates for the 14 seats, the great majority of them currently polling between 1% and 5%.

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