With all this BNP and election talk bouncing around my ears, all of which genuinely interests me, I think it's time I made a little confession.

I've never voted in my life.

This is not completely my fault. Soon after my eighteenth birthday, I registered to vote in what I think was probably the 2002 General Election, only to find out on my arrival at the polling station that my registration had been cocked up and that my barely-broken voice would be smothered by the marvellous party of ineffiency that takes place in Irish administrative services on a daily basis. Add my departure for foreign shores soon after into the equation and I almost have a valid excuse.

I always declare that I have very little interest in politics, but I am beginning to see that that is not strictly true. I couldn't care less about Presidential or General elections - I don't feel that they affect my life in any real way. I would vote if I had the chance, but more to prevent someone I didn't like from getting into office. There is no BNP equivalent on the Little Island, and since I don't believe that Ireland will have an O'bama anytime soon - a radiating beam of light, vanquishing all the feckless rogues that have populated the Irish political scene in the interest of self-service for as long as I can remember, my voting card is quite likely to remain dusty and invalid for quite some time.

Certain referenda, however, I would like to vote in. The Lisbon Treaty, for one - if I had thought for one moment that it would be rejected, I would have registered. Maybe I'll sort that out for round two.

Maybe.