Skip to main content

My Little Book of Tweets

Image
By

 
I feel an adventure coming on

The internet and social media have revolutionised how we communicate. Not just politically but personally too. I have friends who spend hours on their Facebook accounts keeping in touch with family and friends – some of whom they may not have seen in years. Or who may just be in another room.  Skype and Facetime too are now a common part of our language.

Five years ago they weren’t as popular as they are now. Some probably didn’t exist. For my part, apart from emails and my blog my engagement with social media was limited.

All of that began to change when I agreed to stand for Louth and East Meath. That was just before Christmas in December 2010. It was a big step made easier by the warm welcome I received.

When shortly afterwards I was elected as a TD, Shaun Tracey from our Leinster House press office  opened a twitter account in my name. It sat there for two years unused. In February 2013 Shaun and RG decided it was time I really joined the social media world. I vaguely remember a long conversation about how Twitter works and what it would entail. I had no objections to the proposal but I had one condition. That my twitter account should be MY twitter account. I was only half serious but they agreed.

The Twitter account was activated, new passwords inserted and it was over to me to decide when and where and how it would commence.

A few days later I was in Louth doing some constituency work. I had to travel back to Dublin for an Ard Chomhairle meeting the next day. RG was heading back to Belfast. He dropped me out to where we stayed and drove off. The problem was he had the keys to  our lodging. That was the origin of the first tweet. “RG took the car, took my keys also. I feel an adventure coming on."

The response to my tweets was very interesting. Journalists rang the press office and asked if it was really me. It was they were told by Shaun.  I soon discovered when the Sunday Indo spends 17 pages having a good go at me and Sinn Fein  a tweet on a totally unrelated and humorous issue was a good way of showing that I didn’t really care about the rubbish they print.

Irony is a great ally in any argument.  And not taking yourself too seriously. So is contrariness.  Tweeting allows me to give vent to that. It doesn’t all need to be about the politics. It can be about people or the little people in my life or the dogs I have known or the trauma of visits to the barbers or ducks.

Some journos, who don’t know me or have never met me, thought it was some clever ploy by the Sinn Féin thought police to soften my image! I once watched part of a serious BBC political programme where a couple of academics – who I have never met - discussed the hidden meaning of my musings and the cleverness of Sinn Féin in using twitter. RTE and others were not to be left out.

And these folks said my tweets are bizarre! Their preoccupation with my tweets was what was really bizarre.

If truth be told I like the independence of tweeting. I like its immediacy. I can tweet a photo or a comment and within seconds there are responses and retweets. I like the fact that no one is looking over my shoulder. No editor is scrutinising the words.

I also like the fact that in a very real way the social media allows everyone to reach an audience beyond the bias of elements of the media. There is no interpreter; no person in the middle putting his or her spin on what I or other Sinn Féin activists are saying or writing.

Today I checked my twitter. I was curious about its reach. Currently I have ninety eight thousand followers and in the last 24 hours there have been 193,713 impressions connected to my account. That’s a bigger circulation than the Indo.

Perhaps that’s one reason why some opponents in the media and in politics get so obsessed with Twitter. We have moved beyond them.

I  thought of including in this blog some examples of the things that I tweet about. The birds and the bees. RG.  Hurling and football. Life and music and books and poetry and food. Tom and Ted. They strutted their stuff years before the Marriage Equality Referendum.  All the fun and humour that is a natural part of the human condition.

 But I don’t have the space. So I have put together My Little Book Of Tweets. It has been published by Mercier Press.

My first Tweet took life almost exactly three years ago. It’s been an experience. It’s been an adventure. And a bit of craic.

I will be launching ‘My  Little Book Of Tweets’ in Dublin in Easons, Stephens Green at 5pm on Friday. If you have the time join me there. Or in the Kennedy Centre in Belfast on Saturday at 1pm.

Chífidh mé thú ansin.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turf Lodge – A Proud Community

By
This blog attended a very special celebration earlier this week. It was Turf Lodge: 2010 Anois is Arís 50th Anniversary. For those of you who don’t know Turf Lodge is a proud Belfast working class community. Through many difficult years the people of Turf Lodge demonstrated time and time again a commitment to their families and to each other. Like Ballymurphy and Andersonstown, Turf Lodge was one of many estates that were built on the then outskirts of Belfast in the years after the end of World War 2. They were part of a programme of work by Belfast City Corporation known as the ‘Slum clearance and houses redevelopment programme.’ The land on which Turf Lodge was built was eventually bought by the Corporation in June 1956. The name of the estate, it is said, came from a farm on which the estate was built. But it was four years later, in October 1960, and after many disputes and delays between builders and the Corporation, that the first completed houses were handed over for allocation...
2 comments
Read more

Slán Peter John

By
Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy, Fergal Caraher’s parents, Mary and Peter John, and Sinn Féin Councillors Brendan Curran and Colman Burns at the memorial in South Armagh dedicated to Fergal Caraher It was a fine autumn morning. The South Armagh hilltops, free of British Army forts, were beautiful in the bright morning light as we drove north from Dublin to Cullyhanna to attend the funeral of Peter John Caraher. This blog has known Peter John and the Caraher family for many years. A few weeks ago his son Miceál contacted me to let me know that Peter John was terminally ill. I told him I would call. It was just before the Ard Fheis. Miceál explained to me that Peter John had been told he only had a few weeks left but had forgotten this and I needed to be mindful of that in my conversation. I was therefore a wee bit apprehensive about the visit but I called and I came away uplifted and very happy. Peter John was in great form. We spent a couple of hours craicing away, telling yarns and in his c...
2 comments
Read more

The Myth Of “Shadowy Figures”

By
Mise agus Martin and Ted in Stormont Castle 2018 The demonising of republicans has long been an integral part of politics on this island, and especially in the lead into and during electoral campaigns. Through the decades of conflict Unionist leaders and British governments regularly posed as democrats while supporting anti-democratic laws, censorship and the denial of the rights of citizens who voted for Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin Councillors, party activists and family members were killed by unionist death squads, o ften in collusion with British state forces. Successive Irish governments embraced this demonization strategy through Section 31 and state censorship. Sinn Féin was portrayed as undemocratic and dangerous. We were denied municipal or other public buildings to hold events including Ard Fheiseanna. In the years since the Good Friday Agreement these same elements have sought to sustain this narrative. The leaderships of Fianna Fáil, the Irish Labour Party, the SDLP and...
Post a Comment
Read more