{"id":600665,"date":"2026-07-23T18:01:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/600665\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:01:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:01:17","slug":"the-politicians-who-thrived-this-term-and-the-ones-who-had-a-nightmare-%c2%b7-the-candidate-%c2%b7-the-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/600665\/","title":{"rendered":"The politicians who thrived this term, and the ones who had a nightmare \u00b7 The Candidate \u00b7 The Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The politicians who thrived this term, and the ones who had a nightmare \u00b7 The Candidate \u00b7 The Journal<\/p>\n

Sign in. It\u2019s quick, free and it\u2019s up to you.<\/p>\n

An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n 23 Jul 2026 <\/p>\n

\n The politicians who thrived this term, and the ones who had a nightmare <\/p>\n

\n The D\u00e1il has risen, Leinster House is quiet, and TDs are all off doing constituency work (as they tell us every year), so it’s time for our political awards. Christine Bohan, Jane Matthews and Sin\u00e9ad O’Carroll analyse Christina Finn’s report card naming the winners and losers of the term just gone: why Jennifer Carroll MacNeill won the term by picking fights with everyone from the Rotunda to BAM, whether Jim O’Callaghan really belongs on the losers’ list, and how Holly Cairns turned the Social Democrats into the party with a buzz about them. <\/p>\n

Sign in or create
a free account<\/p>\n

This one requires sign in<\/p>\n

Most articles on The Journal are open to read. A small number, including this one, are reserved for registered readers.<\/p>\n

Sign in or create a free account to continue<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The politicians who thrived this term, and the ones who had a nightmare \u00b7 The Candidate \u00b7 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,79,117,13,14,6,17,36456,19872,7335,11,12,15,16,5,50150,132,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-600665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-business","tag-entertainment","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ireland","tag-irish","tag-irish-news","tag-irish-politics","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-news-blog","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116970605913519091","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}