what the people actually said

So the final number of seats per party is as follows:
Fianna Fáil 78
Fine Gael 51
Labour 20
Progressive Democrats 2
Green Party 6
Sinn Féin 4
Independents 5

for a total of 166 seats, requiring a majority of 84 (or a minority government, which I don't know enough about the likelihood of to comment). So, doodling on the back of an Emacs window, I've come up with the following permutations (given the fairly solid premise that a FF/FG government is not going to happen):

FF and everyone except FG: 115 seats
FF, Labour, PD, Greens, Independants: 111 seats
FF, Labour, Greens, Independants: 109 seats
FF, Labour, Greens: 103 seats
FF and Labour: 98 seats
FF, PD, Greens, SF, Independants: 95 seats
FF, Greens, SF, Independants: 93 seats
FF, PD, Greens, Independants: 91 seats
FF, Greens, Independants: 89 seats
FF, SF and Independants: 87 seats
FF, PD, Greens: 86 seats
FF, PD, Independants: 85 seats
FF, PD and SF: 84 seats
FF and Greens: 84 seats

FG and everyone except FF: 88 seats
FG, Labour, Greens, SF and Independants: 86 seats
FG, Labour, PD, Greens and Independants: 84 seats

I've struck out the options involving Sinn Féin since both parties, despite the years spent trying to encourage political groups in Northern Ireland to share government with the Republicans, have said they're not going into power with them in the South. This basically leaves the Rainbow Coalition with the unenviable task of not only coralling all the Independants, but also taking on the Progressive Democrats, which realistically speaking I can't see happening. Fianna Fáil, on the other hand, could conceivably go ahead without the support of any of the Independants, albeit at the risk of facing constant defeat in debates and having the bare minimum majority. Personally I think it's time Enda Kenny admitted defeat and started working on his plans for a FG victory in 2012... oh, wait. That's the year of the Mayan Apocalypse. Sorry, Enda, looks like you've missed your chance!

note: the calculations are hasty and may quite possibly be incorrect because let's face it, MATH IS HARD. And I'm sure mopti will correct both my math and my lack of knowledge about minority governments.

not quite sure what to make of this, really

I'm still somewhat curmudgeonly about YouTube (in my day, we had to make our own animations by figuring out the 'frame rate' of a vt100 terminal scrolling text at 1200 baud, etc. etc.) but this deserves a mention for sheer wacky value: a german metal band of some description singing a song with Irish lyrics. What caught my eye was not the presence of uileann pipes, but the portable chest-mounted harp that looks like you could seriously mosh with it. go see.