Three significant struggles are in progress this weekend, one to secure the primacy of politics in Northern Ireland, a second for the right to represent South Tipperary in the Dail and the third for control of Eircom.
Most people on this island believed that the primacy of politics had been secured by the Belfast Agreement and its endorsement in the referendums that followed. Most voted, as Bertie Ahern, David Trimble and John Reid still remind us, for an unarmed peace.
In spite of the rhetoric in which Gerry Adams cloaks its defence, an armed peace is what Sinn Fein stands for - whether in government in Northern Ireland or in pursuit of Dail seats and a share of power in an increasingly insecure Republic. And paramilitaries, loyalist and republican, watch and wait for the openings that another political failure would provide.
The quandary of the bigger parties in this state is obvious in South Tipperary where Fianna Fail can't win, Fine Gael can't afford to lose and Labour would do well to hold its own.
But to judge by the latest TG 4/MRBI poll, for the second by-election in a year, there's a strong challenge from an Independent; in this case it's Phil Prendergast whose colleague, Seamus Healy of the Workers' and Unemployed Action Group, was elected in the last contest.
For FF, FG and Labour the splintered vote is ominous. But a more threatening challenge lies ahead if, as they fear, Sinn Fein follows its northern pattern of hard work at local level, well financed by overseas contributions and accompanied by vigilante activity - to soften up the electorate.
You may think that the third struggle between two of the richest men in the country and their associates for control of Eircom has little to do with politics and less with the way democracy functions in this State. You would be wrong.
Eircom, as it now stands, is what remains of a company once known as Telecom Eireann. Which had its origins in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. The State service was set up because we needed telephones and the State alone could provide them.
Public funds paid for the establishment of the service. Together, generations of workers and generations of customers made it profitable - to the point where it was considered ripe for privatisation, the first enterprise of its size to be sold by the State.
The struggle between Denis O'Brien and Sir Anthony O'Reilly and their associates may look like a spectator sport of sorts, played under arcane rules which can barely be understood by those directly involved, whether as workers or shareholders, and altogether incomprehensible to most of the customers.
But if Eircom is allowed to go ahead with its present plans, whoever is the ultimate winner will have a powerful say in the provision of one essential service (telephones) and the development of other multimedia services. And if the winner is Sir Anthony O'Reilly, given his role in the Independent Group of newspapers and his interest in MMDS, it will have almost as much control over communications as the present Italian Prime Minister enjoys.
The Independent Group's dominance in the newspaper industry is the theme of an elegantly written essay by John Horgan in a book called Media and the Market- place, just published by the Institute of Public Administration.
Horgan points out that five years ago there were five morning, four evening and five indigenous Sunday newspapers. Today there are four morning, two evening and five Sunday newspapers.
The Independent group owns the largest-selling indigenous newspapers in the daily, evening and Sunday categories, has a 50 per cent share in the Irish Star and control of the Sunday Tribune.
In the indigenous Sunday newspaper field only two - the Sunday Business Post and Ireland on Sunday - are outside its sphere of influence.
Horgan comments: "The substantial concentration of media power in the hands of one corporate interest can be argued to have potentially serious disadvantages for the maintenance of media pluralism and of diversity of editorial opinion as an integral part of Irish culture.
"And this is all in spite of the fact that the Independent group employs many fine journalists and has developed a lively, aggressive sense of journalism which can sometimes make up in immediacy for what it occasionally lacks in depth."
What if the very size of the Independent group, instead of providing a bulwark against predators, merely whets their appetites? And what happens when, in a couple of decades, the future of the publishing empire in which Sir Anthony now has such a large say is no longer decided by him?
Size does matter, Horgan argues, but in a perverse way it is also a threat: who would have thought that Irish Distillers would fall into the hands of Pernod Ricard?
Horgan writes with splendid insight of the way in which reporters learn by osmosis the kind of stuff the boss wants to hear and about the Independent's front-page editorial on the morning of the 1997 general election.
"[It was] written explicitly on behalf of that part of the population which pays income tax and implicitly ignoring or belittling the equally legitimate claims of those among us who pay no income tax because their earnings are too low or because they are social welfare recipients."
It's a subject - and an essay - to which I will return.