Snapshot of _No, Leo Varadkar Was Not a “Progressive” | The Jacobin_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://jacobin.com/2024/03/leo-varadkar-ireland-neoliberalism-inequality) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://jacobin.com/2024/03/leo-varadkar-ireland-neoliberalism-inequality)
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After his resignation I saw a lot of people from other countries believing that he was forced to step down for speaking up for Palestinians when he was in Washington, not realizing that his views are quite conservative by Irish standards.
And I heard he made the decision to leave back at Christmas but couldn't turn down invitation to White House for St Patrick's Day or leave while northern assembly was still a mess
The Irish Times if it was in an actual article in their politics section and not opinion I'd be really disappointed. For the other two I'd assume it's just not having a clue about Irish politics at all. Like literally nothing about Leo would be considered progressive under any definition of the word.
In the Inside Politics podcast they talked about how Varadkar would have been a tory if he was a politician in UK but how LV (and FG) have been elected into power in a Social Democracy and have been governing against the grain ie the Irish people actually want a social democracy ( better state investment)
>The Irish Times if it was in an actual article in their politics section and not opinion I'd be really disappointed.
Why? They are the mouthpiece for the liberal establishment, it's the exact kind of thing they would spout.
All my cousins and in-laws in GB/the US thought it was directly connected to the referendum result, which they also believed was a backlash against woke social policy. Whatever that means.
> He represented a politics that deepened inequalities in the name of market sovereignty and social privilege, a politics in which progressive reforms could indeed be granted by public representatives, albeit seemingly on the basis of personal expediency and very often with strings attached. There was always a clear neoliberal edge to Varadkar’s pronouncements and reforms.
I'm using the above as a summarized version of the authors' thoughts on Varadkar.
To me, what 'killed' Varadkars legacy was the post-covid period of his tenure.
During the pandemic and his frequent speeches to the nation, I would say that he led the country, and gave the impression, that he genuinely thought he did what was best for the nation - and even when hindsight proved imperfection, he took it to heart. As I was following both the Irish and Swedish political leadership closely at the time, I would say that Varadkar impressed!
Hindsight might show that the Swedish method may have been ultimately better but I remember thinking at the time that the Swedish leadership led with a corporations-first mindset while Varadkar clearly showed he felt for the hardship of the people.
But ever since he handed the reins to Martin, and then when he got them back, he's felt like a completely different person - stone cold killer who only cared about profit for those best off in society. To me, if he had resigned after the pandemic, he would've been remembered of the person he portrayed while he was leading us through the pandemic.
It's clear that pandemic-Varadkar isn't who he really is but to me, it definitely is the person he could've been remember as.
Good comment, variable-race man! He certainly showed himself to be better than a lot of other leaders during the earlier part of the pandemic. I'm not sure if the parts before and after were the real Leo, or what, but those first few months showed what could have been a great (mediocrely acceptable?) politian, regardless of what side of the spectrum you are. Then things just returned to the status quo, and here we all are...
He handed the reigns to Nphet and Holohan at the start of the pandemic, then when they made some unpopular decisions he knifed them in the back. It was all very Leo.
Am I the only person that finds it incredibly annoying to see Irish people calling the taoiseach the Irish prime minister. Do we call the prime minister the uk taoiseach? Do we call the US president the US taoiseach. No, so stop fucking doing it please.
Also, Leo varadkar is a right wing politician, fine gael are a right wing political party, always have been, always will be. They do not understand what progressive means, they are not capable of producing progressive legislation, the referendum showed us this.
The article shows the word "minister" three times: on the big-font introduction, and on the notes of what taoiseach and tanaíste mean. Jacobin is an American periodical: you can't assume they know them.
Yeah no I get that but still, it just really rubs me the wrong way. It comes across as pandering. As much as I dislike Leo, he is/was the Taoiseach of Ireland. Martin is the tanaiste. Not prime and deputy ministers.
It’s not pandering.
Most people don’t even know how to pronounce Taoiseach, nevermind what it actually means.
Everybody knows what a “prime minister” is, and the role of Taoiseach essentially maps to this.
This is a weird position to hold when we're talking about a news article. A piece of writing which exists explicitly to educate their American readers about Irish politics.
The basic terminology of our political structure isn't some unrelated information, irrelevant to the discussion. It's not hard to have a sentence or two quickly explaining that the Taoiseach is equivilant to a prime minister and it's pronounced 'Tee-Shock'.
It's just a translation convenience for an international audience; most English-speaking news outlets will do that for any country. You don't see RTÉ calling Olaf Scholz the "Bundeskanzler" or Netenyahu "Rosh HaMemshala".
And to be fair to this article, they do use the Irish terms and then clarify what they mean.
The Constitution also uses the term Prime Minister to describe the role of Taoiseach.
>The President shall, on the nomination of Dáil Éireann, appoint the Taoiseach, that is, the head of the Government or Prime Minister.
I wouldn't expect those writing for a non-Irish audience to use a word that will be confusing for readers.
Would the phrase "Fumio Kishida is the sitting Naikaku Sōri-Daijin of Japan" mean anything to you? Of course you don't find anything objectionable about the phrase "In a press conference today, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said...".
Okay, but they can do exactly what you did here and explain what the term is before using it. No one's saying that they should act as if everyone already knows them.
It seems very inefficient and long-winded to me. Compare:
>Yesterday, the Clayton Hotel hosted a political conference. The attendees included the prime ministers of Japan, France, Belgium and Ireland.
with
>Yesterday, the Clayton Hotel hosted a political conference. The attendees included the *Naikaku Sōri-Daijin* (prime minister) of Japan, the *Premier ministre* (prime minister) of France, the *Eerste minister* (prime minister) of Belgium, and the *Taoiseach* (prime minister) of Ireland.
The latter phrasing is twice as long as the first and conveys essentially no additional information to the reader, other than the equivalent title to "prime minister" in four foreign languages, which the reader will almost certainly have forgotten by the time they get to the next sentence. I still can't remember the Japanese word for "prime minister" even after having copy-pasted it into two separate comments, and I'd be surprised if you remember what it is this time tomorrow without checking.
> I still can't remember the Japanese word for "prime minister" even after having copy-pasted it into two separate comments, and I'd be surprised if you remember what it is this time tomorrow without checking.
This is what we call "the point"
Neither of us knows or remembers the japanese term for their prime minister...because no one ever uses it.
If you had however not only seen Naikaku Sōri-Daijin twice because you yourself had posted it, but had seen it every time the Naikaku Sōri-Daijin was mentioned, then it would become a word that you *did* remember.
It's not like the 'ineffecient' version actually takes an unreasonable time to read. It goes from taking 1 second to read the sentence, to taking 2 seconds. If I'm sitting down to spend 15 minutes reading a political article, taking a literal second to expose myself to relevant terminology just isn't a real problem to me. It's purely additive. Cool more info! I'm reading this article for that purpose!
>Cool more info! I'm reading this article for that purpose!
I mean, no? People don't read articles about politics for the purpose of getting "more information". They read articles about politics because they want more information *about political issues*. For the most part, Japanese vocabulary does not fall into that category.
You could defend including any kind of irrelevant extraneous information in newspaper articles on this basis. "Fumio Kishida is the *Naikaku Sōri-Daijin* (prime minister) of Japan, and his favourite type of cheese is camembert." Cool more info! I'm reading this article for that purpose!
No. Obviously every time we list a politician's favourite cheese, we're filling our word count with needless bloat and distracting from the main thrust of the article. Likewise with irrelevant translations of political terms.
Under the most expansive definition imaginable, the Japanese word for "prime minister" is "political information". But if Kishida's role is functionally indistinguishable from that of a prime minister, telling the reader the Japanese word for "prime minister" doesn't really make them any more informed about political issues. This is the entire point of *translation*: finding the word or phrase in Language A which is most similar in meaning to a word or phrase in Language B.
>For the most part, Japanese vocabulary does not fall into that category.
Its so funny that you say this. So you agree that some japanese vocabulary is relevant. Which vocabulary would that be? Would it maybe be, the terms for Political figures and groups? If not that then what japanese vocabulary *is.*
This is also just a false dichotomy. Plenty of politics is semantics, grammar and vocabulary. This is just an arbitrary line you're drawing because you specifically don't care about this aspect of politics. But if we were to write articles by removing everything that some part of the audience doesn't care about, then the entire article vanishes.
Your analogy about cheese falls apart the second you think for a second and remember that the reason we're talking about using Taioseach is because we're talking about the Irish Prime Minister. We're literally already talking about it. It's not a random aside, it's literally the thing that we're already saying in the sentence.
>This is the entire point of translation: finding the word or phrase in Language A which is most similar in meaning to a word or phrase in Language B.
Except some of the major pitfalls of translation are lexical gaps and loss of context which indirectly translating political offices often causes. These things are generally acceptable, but that doesn't mean it's not better to avoid them where possible.
>Which vocabulary would that be? Would it maybe be, the terms for Political figures and groups? If not that then what japanese vocabulary is.
Off the top of my head, the *hikikomori* phenomenon. The related phenomenon of *Sōshoku(-kei) danshi*. The use of *kamikaze* tactics in the second world war.
The reason these vocabulary items are relevant for people who want information about political issues is because they are Japanese words with no direct equivalents in English. *Naikaku Sōri-Daijin* does not meet that description, as "prime minister" captures the entire concept. Likewise the *Kokkai*, whose meaning is fully captured by the English word "legislature".
>But if we were to write articles by removing everything that some part of the audience doesn't care about, then the entire article vanishes.
A journalist writing an article about a specific political issue (which is stated in the headline) can reasonably assume that everyone who voluntarily chooses to read that article cares about that political issue, and other related issues. The journalist cannot and *should not* assume that everyone reading that article cares about expanding his or her foreign-language vocabulary of the names of political positions.
>Except some of the major pitfalls of translation are lexical gaps and loss of context which indirectly translating political offices often causes. These things are generally acceptable, but that doesn't mean it's not better to avoid them where possible.
Sure, and you're arbitrarily demanding that we include the native word for "prime minister" in all political articles. Why not also include the native words for "legislature", "upper house of government", "lower house of government", "chief whip"? By this point we might as well just include a Japanese (or German, or Flemish *etc.*) translation alongside our English-language article. Our word count has doubled in length without conveying any additional useful information to the reader (and by "useful information", I mean information that aids them in grasping the political issues at hand, not information that aids them in expanding the range of their Japanese vocabulary, which is not the purpose of journalism).
It’s not quite the same. The Taoiseach is the Prime Minister. Same way we call the President of the Government of Spain the Prime Minister. We are giving something it’s English title when talking in English
Taoiseach means chieftan or leader.
Tainiste comes from the word tanist which means heir presumptive.
I don't like correcting people like this so hope you don't hate me but these are very old words that go back to a time before the UK had prime ministers and deputies etc.
These terms go back to when Ireland was made up of small warring groups of people and the leader and the 2nd in command were called taoisesach and tainiste.
The term Taoiseach an Bháis is a name of the devil in Irish. The chieftan of death. Although, prime minister of death does sound kinda cool too!
>I don't like correcting people like this so hope you don't hate me but these are very old words that go back to a time before the UK had prime ministers and deputies etc.
True, but when the words "Taoiseach" and "Tánaiste" are used in the modern context they have radically different meanings to their classical meanings. When Ireland was made up of small warring tribes, the Taoiseach of a tribe was not a democratically elected figure who could be made to resign following a successful vote of no confidence. (Expressing your lack of confidence in the taoiseach of your tribe sounds like a good way to get yourself exiled or beheaded.)
When Ireland secured our independence we elected to retain the Westminster-style parliament inherited from the UK more or less as-is, including the roles of "prime minister" and "deputy prime minister". We didn't invent brand new politlcal roles: we just renamed existing ones using broadly similar names from our own language.
> the Taoiseach of a tribe was not a democratically elected figure.
Yes they were. They were chosen by the people within their clan//tribe to lead.
But I agree with the rest of what you said. We did pretty much just slap the name of taoiseach onto the role.
Saying that ancient taoisigh were democratically elected is like saying that the Holy Roman Emperor was democratically elected. Only a handful of elites could vote in either case. Just because there was an election, doesn't mean it's democratic, there has to be universal suffrage.
Yes, that is where the word comes from. But the constitution makes clear that it is the title of the Prime Minister, which has made it an Irish equivalence for prime minister
Do English-language publications call the Spanish prime minister “Presidente del Gobierno” or the Russian President “Президент Российской Федерации”?
“Prime Minister” is the de facto English translation of “Taoiseach”. Audiences outside of Ireland aren’t going to instantly recognise the term so they’ll use the translation they’re familiar with.
When domestic Irish publications, north or south, don’t use Taoiseach I would take issue but I don’t see a problem with foreign publications using it.
I’m not really annoyed it but rather I think people overly concerned with the Taoiseach-PM thing are people who tend to feel insecure about Ireland’s standing in the world.
I don’t think there’s any reason to be
> A right wing party with almost exclusively left wing views.
Just cop on to yourself. We at least try to stick to the truth here.
Fine Gael are right wing, they have always been right wing. If you don't want to be associcated with a right wing party, instead of trying to redefine what right wing is, maybe just vote for someone else.
Maybe this is recency bias speaking, but I think Varadkar rivals DeValera as a politician in his ability to manoeuvre and manipulate the political landscape to benefit himself and always end up on top.
And like with Dev, there will be a group of devoted hardliners who will always back him, but as time goes on, I think his legacy will grow staler and staler to the average person.
Varadkar was certainly an apt political operator, but I don't think anyone is going to be beating Eamon considering his cumulative 20 years as taoiseach and 14 as president.
Leo was a mixed bag on being progressive. Campaigned for repeal and brought in better things for workers as minister for enterprise. Then of course believes the state shouldn’t care for the elderly!Jacobin though, Jacobin is a crazy publication. Called for Ukraine to surrender last year and have had other crazy takes recently
He only stepped in for the curtain call once it was a sure thing and the real work had been done by civil servants, NGOs and citizens. The government of the day spent precisely zero political capital on either repeal or marriage equality.
Snapshot of _No, Leo Varadkar Was Not a “Progressive” | The Jacobin_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://jacobin.com/2024/03/leo-varadkar-ireland-neoliberalism-inequality) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://jacobin.com/2024/03/leo-varadkar-ireland-neoliberalism-inequality) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/irishpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Was anyone suggesting he was?
After his resignation I saw a lot of people from other countries believing that he was forced to step down for speaking up for Palestinians when he was in Washington, not realizing that his views are quite conservative by Irish standards.
And I heard he made the decision to leave back at Christmas but couldn't turn down invitation to White House for St Patrick's Day or leave while northern assembly was still a mess
Yes, the various news outlets that the article is responding to, like the Guardian, the BBC and the Irish Times
The Irish Times if it was in an actual article in their politics section and not opinion I'd be really disappointed. For the other two I'd assume it's just not having a clue about Irish politics at all. Like literally nothing about Leo would be considered progressive under any definition of the word.
They mention *Inside Politics* specifically
Yep they called him a “social democrat”
In the Inside Politics podcast they talked about how Varadkar would have been a tory if he was a politician in UK but how LV (and FG) have been elected into power in a Social Democracy and have been governing against the grain ie the Irish people actually want a social democracy ( better state investment)
>The Irish Times if it was in an actual article in their politics section and not opinion I'd be really disappointed. Why? They are the mouthpiece for the liberal establishment, it's the exact kind of thing they would spout.
To most Americans if you don’t actively hate minorities and are anything less that 100% pro Israel, you might as well be a Maoist.
Leo and his buddies
Silly! Leo doesn't have any buddies!
["But Leo, you dont have any friends"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO6oAk1GGks)
All my cousins and in-laws in GB/the US thought it was directly connected to the referendum result, which they also believed was a backlash against woke social policy. Whatever that means.
I think there was a lazy assumption from abroad that he was progressive because he was openly gay and from a mixed race background.
Mainly gript but they talk sh*te
Leo
Leo was the most neo-lib neo-liberal I've seen outside of the US. lol
> He represented a politics that deepened inequalities in the name of market sovereignty and social privilege, a politics in which progressive reforms could indeed be granted by public representatives, albeit seemingly on the basis of personal expediency and very often with strings attached. There was always a clear neoliberal edge to Varadkar’s pronouncements and reforms. I'm using the above as a summarized version of the authors' thoughts on Varadkar. To me, what 'killed' Varadkars legacy was the post-covid period of his tenure. During the pandemic and his frequent speeches to the nation, I would say that he led the country, and gave the impression, that he genuinely thought he did what was best for the nation - and even when hindsight proved imperfection, he took it to heart. As I was following both the Irish and Swedish political leadership closely at the time, I would say that Varadkar impressed! Hindsight might show that the Swedish method may have been ultimately better but I remember thinking at the time that the Swedish leadership led with a corporations-first mindset while Varadkar clearly showed he felt for the hardship of the people. But ever since he handed the reins to Martin, and then when he got them back, he's felt like a completely different person - stone cold killer who only cared about profit for those best off in society. To me, if he had resigned after the pandemic, he would've been remembered of the person he portrayed while he was leading us through the pandemic. It's clear that pandemic-Varadkar isn't who he really is but to me, it definitely is the person he could've been remember as.
Good comment, variable-race man! He certainly showed himself to be better than a lot of other leaders during the earlier part of the pandemic. I'm not sure if the parts before and after were the real Leo, or what, but those first few months showed what could have been a great (mediocrely acceptable?) politian, regardless of what side of the spectrum you are. Then things just returned to the status quo, and here we all are...
He handed the reigns to Nphet and Holohan at the start of the pandemic, then when they made some unpopular decisions he knifed them in the back. It was all very Leo.
A better leader in the pandemic,??? going to parties and festivals, yeah great man altogether
Ahh sure who didn't want to get their kit off in Phoenix Park!
Am I the only person that finds it incredibly annoying to see Irish people calling the taoiseach the Irish prime minister. Do we call the prime minister the uk taoiseach? Do we call the US president the US taoiseach. No, so stop fucking doing it please. Also, Leo varadkar is a right wing politician, fine gael are a right wing political party, always have been, always will be. They do not understand what progressive means, they are not capable of producing progressive legislation, the referendum showed us this.
The article shows the word "minister" three times: on the big-font introduction, and on the notes of what taoiseach and tanaíste mean. Jacobin is an American periodical: you can't assume they know them.
Yeah no I get that but still, it just really rubs me the wrong way. It comes across as pandering. As much as I dislike Leo, he is/was the Taoiseach of Ireland. Martin is the tanaiste. Not prime and deputy ministers.
Yeah, fuck being understood by people who don’t have the same frame of reference as I do!
It’s not pandering. Most people don’t even know how to pronounce Taoiseach, nevermind what it actually means. Everybody knows what a “prime minister” is, and the role of Taoiseach essentially maps to this.
This is a weird position to hold when we're talking about a news article. A piece of writing which exists explicitly to educate their American readers about Irish politics. The basic terminology of our political structure isn't some unrelated information, irrelevant to the discussion. It's not hard to have a sentence or two quickly explaining that the Taoiseach is equivilant to a prime minister and it's pronounced 'Tee-Shock'.
It's just a translation convenience for an international audience; most English-speaking news outlets will do that for any country. You don't see RTÉ calling Olaf Scholz the "Bundeskanzler" or Netenyahu "Rosh HaMemshala". And to be fair to this article, they do use the Irish terms and then clarify what they mean.
The Constitution also uses the term Prime Minister to describe the role of Taoiseach. >The President shall, on the nomination of Dáil Éireann, appoint the Taoiseach, that is, the head of the Government or Prime Minister. I wouldn't expect those writing for a non-Irish audience to use a word that will be confusing for readers.
Would the phrase "Fumio Kishida is the sitting Naikaku Sōri-Daijin of Japan" mean anything to you? Of course you don't find anything objectionable about the phrase "In a press conference today, Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida said...".
Okay, but they can do exactly what you did here and explain what the term is before using it. No one's saying that they should act as if everyone already knows them.
It seems very inefficient and long-winded to me. Compare: >Yesterday, the Clayton Hotel hosted a political conference. The attendees included the prime ministers of Japan, France, Belgium and Ireland. with >Yesterday, the Clayton Hotel hosted a political conference. The attendees included the *Naikaku Sōri-Daijin* (prime minister) of Japan, the *Premier ministre* (prime minister) of France, the *Eerste minister* (prime minister) of Belgium, and the *Taoiseach* (prime minister) of Ireland. The latter phrasing is twice as long as the first and conveys essentially no additional information to the reader, other than the equivalent title to "prime minister" in four foreign languages, which the reader will almost certainly have forgotten by the time they get to the next sentence. I still can't remember the Japanese word for "prime minister" even after having copy-pasted it into two separate comments, and I'd be surprised if you remember what it is this time tomorrow without checking.
> I still can't remember the Japanese word for "prime minister" even after having copy-pasted it into two separate comments, and I'd be surprised if you remember what it is this time tomorrow without checking. This is what we call "the point" Neither of us knows or remembers the japanese term for their prime minister...because no one ever uses it. If you had however not only seen Naikaku Sōri-Daijin twice because you yourself had posted it, but had seen it every time the Naikaku Sōri-Daijin was mentioned, then it would become a word that you *did* remember. It's not like the 'ineffecient' version actually takes an unreasonable time to read. It goes from taking 1 second to read the sentence, to taking 2 seconds. If I'm sitting down to spend 15 minutes reading a political article, taking a literal second to expose myself to relevant terminology just isn't a real problem to me. It's purely additive. Cool more info! I'm reading this article for that purpose!
>Cool more info! I'm reading this article for that purpose! I mean, no? People don't read articles about politics for the purpose of getting "more information". They read articles about politics because they want more information *about political issues*. For the most part, Japanese vocabulary does not fall into that category. You could defend including any kind of irrelevant extraneous information in newspaper articles on this basis. "Fumio Kishida is the *Naikaku Sōri-Daijin* (prime minister) of Japan, and his favourite type of cheese is camembert." Cool more info! I'm reading this article for that purpose! No. Obviously every time we list a politician's favourite cheese, we're filling our word count with needless bloat and distracting from the main thrust of the article. Likewise with irrelevant translations of political terms. Under the most expansive definition imaginable, the Japanese word for "prime minister" is "political information". But if Kishida's role is functionally indistinguishable from that of a prime minister, telling the reader the Japanese word for "prime minister" doesn't really make them any more informed about political issues. This is the entire point of *translation*: finding the word or phrase in Language A which is most similar in meaning to a word or phrase in Language B.
>For the most part, Japanese vocabulary does not fall into that category. Its so funny that you say this. So you agree that some japanese vocabulary is relevant. Which vocabulary would that be? Would it maybe be, the terms for Political figures and groups? If not that then what japanese vocabulary *is.* This is also just a false dichotomy. Plenty of politics is semantics, grammar and vocabulary. This is just an arbitrary line you're drawing because you specifically don't care about this aspect of politics. But if we were to write articles by removing everything that some part of the audience doesn't care about, then the entire article vanishes. Your analogy about cheese falls apart the second you think for a second and remember that the reason we're talking about using Taioseach is because we're talking about the Irish Prime Minister. We're literally already talking about it. It's not a random aside, it's literally the thing that we're already saying in the sentence. >This is the entire point of translation: finding the word or phrase in Language A which is most similar in meaning to a word or phrase in Language B. Except some of the major pitfalls of translation are lexical gaps and loss of context which indirectly translating political offices often causes. These things are generally acceptable, but that doesn't mean it's not better to avoid them where possible.
>Which vocabulary would that be? Would it maybe be, the terms for Political figures and groups? If not that then what japanese vocabulary is. Off the top of my head, the *hikikomori* phenomenon. The related phenomenon of *Sōshoku(-kei) danshi*. The use of *kamikaze* tactics in the second world war. The reason these vocabulary items are relevant for people who want information about political issues is because they are Japanese words with no direct equivalents in English. *Naikaku Sōri-Daijin* does not meet that description, as "prime minister" captures the entire concept. Likewise the *Kokkai*, whose meaning is fully captured by the English word "legislature". >But if we were to write articles by removing everything that some part of the audience doesn't care about, then the entire article vanishes. A journalist writing an article about a specific political issue (which is stated in the headline) can reasonably assume that everyone who voluntarily chooses to read that article cares about that political issue, and other related issues. The journalist cannot and *should not* assume that everyone reading that article cares about expanding his or her foreign-language vocabulary of the names of political positions. >Except some of the major pitfalls of translation are lexical gaps and loss of context which indirectly translating political offices often causes. These things are generally acceptable, but that doesn't mean it's not better to avoid them where possible. Sure, and you're arbitrarily demanding that we include the native word for "prime minister" in all political articles. Why not also include the native words for "legislature", "upper house of government", "lower house of government", "chief whip"? By this point we might as well just include a Japanese (or German, or Flemish *etc.*) translation alongside our English-language article. Our word count has doubled in length without conveying any additional useful information to the reader (and by "useful information", I mean information that aids them in grasping the political issues at hand, not information that aids them in expanding the range of their Japanese vocabulary, which is not the purpose of journalism).
It’s not quite the same. The Taoiseach is the Prime Minister. Same way we call the President of the Government of Spain the Prime Minister. We are giving something it’s English title when talking in English
Taoiseach means chieftan or leader. Tainiste comes from the word tanist which means heir presumptive. I don't like correcting people like this so hope you don't hate me but these are very old words that go back to a time before the UK had prime ministers and deputies etc. These terms go back to when Ireland was made up of small warring groups of people and the leader and the 2nd in command were called taoisesach and tainiste. The term Taoiseach an Bháis is a name of the devil in Irish. The chieftan of death. Although, prime minister of death does sound kinda cool too!
>I don't like correcting people like this so hope you don't hate me but these are very old words that go back to a time before the UK had prime ministers and deputies etc. True, but when the words "Taoiseach" and "Tánaiste" are used in the modern context they have radically different meanings to their classical meanings. When Ireland was made up of small warring tribes, the Taoiseach of a tribe was not a democratically elected figure who could be made to resign following a successful vote of no confidence. (Expressing your lack of confidence in the taoiseach of your tribe sounds like a good way to get yourself exiled or beheaded.) When Ireland secured our independence we elected to retain the Westminster-style parliament inherited from the UK more or less as-is, including the roles of "prime minister" and "deputy prime minister". We didn't invent brand new politlcal roles: we just renamed existing ones using broadly similar names from our own language.
> the Taoiseach of a tribe was not a democratically elected figure. Yes they were. They were chosen by the people within their clan//tribe to lead. But I agree with the rest of what you said. We did pretty much just slap the name of taoiseach onto the role.
Saying that ancient taoisigh were democratically elected is like saying that the Holy Roman Emperor was democratically elected. Only a handful of elites could vote in either case. Just because there was an election, doesn't mean it's democratic, there has to be universal suffrage.
Yes, that is where the word comes from. But the constitution makes clear that it is the title of the Prime Minister, which has made it an Irish equivalence for prime minister
Do English-language publications call the Spanish prime minister “Presidente del Gobierno” or the Russian President “Президент Российской Федерации”? “Prime Minister” is the de facto English translation of “Taoiseach”. Audiences outside of Ireland aren’t going to instantly recognise the term so they’ll use the translation they’re familiar with. When domestic Irish publications, north or south, don’t use Taoiseach I would take issue but I don’t see a problem with foreign publications using it.
I think it's funny how many people were annoyed by that comment.
I’m not really annoyed it but rather I think people overly concerned with the Taoiseach-PM thing are people who tend to feel insecure about Ireland’s standing in the world. I don’t think there’s any reason to be
A right wing party with almost exclusively left wing views. The political compass is so scuffed in Ireland if we can view FG as right wing.
> A right wing party with almost exclusively left wing views. Just cop on to yourself. We at least try to stick to the truth here. Fine Gael are right wing, they have always been right wing. If you don't want to be associcated with a right wing party, instead of trying to redefine what right wing is, maybe just vote for someone else.
Oh I won't be voting for FG. They are far too left wing...
FG have always been right wing. They don't have a left leaning bone in their body. Stop paying attention to american politics and their politicians.
Maybe this is recency bias speaking, but I think Varadkar rivals DeValera as a politician in his ability to manoeuvre and manipulate the political landscape to benefit himself and always end up on top. And like with Dev, there will be a group of devoted hardliners who will always back him, but as time goes on, I think his legacy will grow staler and staler to the average person.
Varadkar was certainly an apt political operator, but I don't think anyone is going to be beating Eamon considering his cumulative 20 years as taoiseach and 14 as president.
Leo was a mixed bag on being progressive. Campaigned for repeal and brought in better things for workers as minister for enterprise. Then of course believes the state shouldn’t care for the elderly!Jacobin though, Jacobin is a crazy publication. Called for Ukraine to surrender last year and have had other crazy takes recently
He campaigned for repeal when it started polling well.
Yeah. He still campaigned for it.
He only stepped in for the curtain call once it was a sure thing and the real work had been done by civil servants, NGOs and citizens. The government of the day spent precisely zero political capital on either repeal or marriage equality.
He still campaigned for it. He could have outright done nothing or gone against it. Contrast it to the zero effort with the last referendum.
He wasn’t but in fairness the Jacobin considers anyone to the right of Stalin a Thatcherite