Damien Mulley

*whistles innocently*
Nothing to see here

Cian, Suzy, Mick and myself have been busy the past while getting a conference together called “Blogging the Election”. Details available over on IrishElection.com about this. This is an IrishElection.com gig with support from the rest of us. We’d love to see as many people there as can go and that we can accomodate. Please try and encourage any politicians and journalists you know to come along too.

We’ll be using the tag “irishelection2007” to tag all posts that cover this event.

A registration form will go up soon so you can register for the event. Details of guest speakers will appear in due course too.

Update: Coverage on Slugger.

Press release below:

Inaugural conference on blogging and politics to be held in Dublin on October 7th.

The heavyweights of the growing Irish blogging community will mix with politicians, journalists and interested members of the public at an event called “Blogging the Election” In Dublin in October. The event is being billed as an informal meeting and discussion on how new Internet tools like blogging can help and influence the very traditional political process in Ireland.

Politics website IrishElection.com will be running the event with the support of political commentator Mick Fealty from website SluggerOToole.com, campaigner Suzy Byrne from MamanPoulet.com and Internet lobbyist Damien Mulley.

Cian O’Flaherty from IrishElection.com stated “Irish Politics has yet to embrace and tap into the ability of the Internet to energise interest in politics and political campaigning. The “Blogging the Election” event will explore how bloggers can benefit elections and help shape the future of politics.”

Mick Fealty from Slugger O’Toole added “Next year’s general election holds possibilities for a blogging breakthrough in Irish politics and we will be exploring this issue in depth via experienced guest speakers and by facilitating a series of open spaces in which participants can host their own conversations, probing issues that they are passionate about.”

More information is available from www.IrishElection.com

About blogging and politics:

Blogging has revolutionised online communication in way that few previously imagined. It has allowed intelligent audiences to make faster and smarter responses that often disrupt traditional top down news flows. It puts considerable power in the hands of ordinary citizens to disrupt cosy consensuses of established political and media elites.

In the US, bloggers have shaped some of the biggest news stories and continue to provide a decisive influence, even inside political parties. In Britain, a new breed of aggressive anti-government bloggers has been generating stories that have brought them into the centre of the mainstream establishment, the Deputy Prime Minister the most senior politician to feel the heat.