Coalition in Dublin would be seriously damaging for Sinn Féin

We have no ambition to be part of the system. Our ambition is to change it” was Gerry Adams’ line at the Sinn Féin think-in yesterday.

That’s about where Syriza in Greece was once. But that was then and this is now. It’s not simply that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, and Adams understands that. It is more profound.

Sinn Féin is really a nationalist party, but not really a socialist one. It may have policy differences with the system so-called but it is fundamentally part of it, and is expert at operating it. Sinn Féin in 2017 is capitalist, careerist and compromised enough for government.