Good morning,

Apologies for the slightly late start this morning.

"Such is the drama of violence that it is easy to forget that the most important moment in the creation of an independent Irish State was a democratic election, held on December 14th, 1918. It was by far the biggest exercise in democracy yet staged on the island" - FintanO'Toole, The Irish Times, click on the image above for the whole article.

There is much to mark today's centenary of the Irish general election of 1918. 'Election' 18 will be broadcast live from the year 1918 tonight at 7pm on RTÉ 1.

And if ever we needed reminding of how important our own democracy is, this was the week that unnamed Tory party sources insisted "the Irish should know their place".