It’s been three days since Ireland went to the ballot box to decide the local and European elections and, much to consternation of pretty much everyone, we’re still waiting for the final results. The exit polls though show a remarkable collapse in support for Sinn Fein.

Mary Lou McDonald’s attempts to become respectable with the overwhelmingly liberal and middle-class Dublin mediocracy quite simply blew up in her face

This has been a rancorous and remarkably bad-tempered campaign. The rise in popularity in the polls of supposedly anti-immigrant parties such as Irish Freedom and Ireland First (neither of which even existed when we had the last local, European and general elections) had seemed to indicate that this new right-wing movement was enjoying a surge in popularity.

As we see from the exit polls, this might not necessarily be entirely the case, with neither party doing particularly well so far. The Irish are fundamentally conservative with a small ‘c’ and they tend to avoid changing their vote to what they may worry is an extremist........

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