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Fine Gael may hold a majority of Dail seats, but Sinn Fein is the dominant party on social media by a country mile.

We analysed each Oireachtas party's Facebook and Twitter activity in the week when Irish people took to the streets in their thousands to protest against water charges.

As disgruntled citizens voiced their frustration at Government, social media support flooded in for Sinn Fein, while Fine Gael and Labour's engagement slowed to a trickle.

Our analysis also shows how the key anti-water charge parties made big gains in new followers and engagement.

Commenting on the data, Sinn Fein said its social media platforms are an important way of communicating directly with constituents.

"As a party that had to contend with official and unofficial state censorship for many years we have always looked at ways to get our message directly to people.

"Whether that is engaging with people on the doorsteps, at public meetings or now online – we often had to step outside of the mainstream media to try and get heard,” a spokesperson said.

“The development of social media in the last number of years has provided us with the ideal platform to get our comments and policies to people in an unfiltered manner.

"It’s raw information for people to consider and pass judgement on in their own time - it’s not somebody else’s interpretation of our position. That’s important."

Fine Gael had no comment to make on its poor social media metrics but a spokeswoman said: “We fully encourage our representatives to be on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube - they are great tools for connecting directly with constituents.

"Fine Gael Headquarters has a fully fledged Digital Media Department at the disposal of all of its members.”

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Facebook

With 54,662 likes, Sinn Fein's Facebook page has more than five times as many followers as its closest rival, the Labour Party, and almost three times as many likes as the two government party pages combined.

Over the past week, the Sinn Fein gained 724 new page likes, while Fine Gael gained just 23 - less than any other party in Government. With just 8,905 page likes, the Government party is less popular than Labour and trails a distant third to Sinn Fein.

The Socialist Party saw its Facebook support swell by 30% with 441 new pages likes, while the Anti-Austerity Alliance gained 112 new folllowers. Click the headings on our interactive tables to compare Facebook and Twitter activity by each party during the week::

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Sinn Fein followers were also the most engaged with their party on Facebook.

The party posted 10 times during the week. Its posts attracted an average of 1,376 likes, 272 shares and 117 comments.

Only Fine Gael had a higher average number of comments per post at 122.

The party posted just once during the water debacle, but had the second highest number of average likes and shares per post at 143 and 22 respectively.

However, this is still almost 10 times less than the number of likes and shares generated by Sinn Fein posts.

Posts by the Anti Austerity Alliance also did well in terms of engagement with the third highest numbers of likes, shares and comments throughout the week.

(Image: Gareth Chaney/Collins Agency)

Fianna Fail emerged as the least relevant party on Facebook, with the lowest number of followers, the lowest amount of people talking about its page and the second lowest number of new page likes.

The party did not post one new update throughout the week.

In terms of engagement however, the most recent Fianna Fail posts have had more likes, shares and comments than the Labour party, People Before Profit and the Socialist Party.

Twitter

Sinn Fein also has the highest Twitter following at 28,700. The party posted 73 times throughout the week, 43% more than Fine Gael, who posted 51 times.

But the party was not as effective at engaging followers as other anti-water charge organisations.

People Before Profit had the highest engagement with an average of 21 retweets and 15 favourites per tweet.

The Socialist Party followed with 14 retweets and eight favourites per tweet, while Sinn Fein was in third place with 13 retweets and eight favourites.

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Labour has the second highest number of Twitter followers with 18,400, followed by Fianna Fail with 15,200 and Fine Gael with 13,800.

These parties were more active on Twitter than on Facebook during the week, with Fianna Fail posting 29 tweets while Labour tweeted 26 times.

However, Labour had the lowest engagement of the main parties with an average of just two retweets and one favourite per tweet - seven times less engagement than Sinn Fein tweets received.

Fine Gael also fared poorly with two retweets and three favourites per tweet.

Fianna Fail fared slightly better, generating five retweets and four favourites per tweet, but trailed significantly behind the anti-water charge parties in terms of engagement.