New group, more fragmentation: Divided Left struggling for relevance

In the not so very long ago confounded European Union mandarins launched a community-wide competition so an articulate European might offer a workable definition of peripherality. The layered implications, the one-man’s-meat-is-another-man’s-tofu complexity of that designation and its geographic realities were bewildering, so a prize of €100,000 was offered.

It may be time to launch a similar competition in Ireland to find a plausible collective noun for the parties of the Left. The launch of Rise — Radical, Internationalist, Socialist and Environmentalist — established by former Socialist TD Paul Murphy announced the 15th group or party vying to represent Ireland’s left-leaning voters.