WHAT WORDS WOULD you associate with the leaders of the five main political parties? Eamon Gilmore with “prudence” perhaps? Micheal Martin with “real plan”? Enda Kenny with “debate”? John Gormley with “hustings”? Gerry Adams with “banks”?

According to the new TheJournal.ie Realtime Twitter Tracker, all of those are in the top ten words most associated with the five leaders on the social media website.

Our new Twitter analysis tool also shows that there are other, less obvious, words popping up regularly in relation to the party leaders: Why is the word ‘Santa’ in the top ten words associated with Micheal Martin on Twitter at the moment? Why is the name “Vincent” in the top ten words associated with Enda? (Okay, that’s an easy one).

To solve these, and other mysteries of how the voting public are thinking, TheJournal.ie has launched the awesome Realtime Twitter Tracker on our site which:

• Analyses who is the most talked about party leader on Twitter – at the moment, it’s Enda Kenny by a long stretch;
• Identifies the top ten trending General Election 2011 candidates on Twitter in a given week;
• Compiles the top ten words associated most frequently with each leader on Twitter;
• Tracks which is the most talked-about party on Twitter at any moment in time.

Last night, for example, Fianna Fail mentions peaked at around 450 tweets between the 8.30-10pm time slot, while Labour hit a sharp peak of 300 at around 8.30pm and then dropped sharply immediately afterwards. (This coincided with the ad break in the TV3 leaders’ debate between Eamon Gilmore and Micheal Martin.

TheJournal.ie has teamed up with Clarity, a sensor-web technology partnership between UCD, DCU and Tyndall National Institute in Cork to bring you this interactive tool and understand what social media users really think of the Election 2011 campaign.

The activity on Twitter can be analysed down to the minute by dragging the expanding timeline tool at the bottom of our nifty graph so check it out for yourself here>