Here in Dublin, the City Council has returned a solid left majority, although given that it's made up of a combination of Labour, SF, the Socialist Workers' Party (thinly disguised) and a few independents of various tendencies - all of whom get along with each other about as well as parties of the left usually do - you'd have to have some doubts about how much they're going to be able to accomplish. And local government is incredibly weak in Ireland anyway.
The interesting story is the total meltdown of the Green Party, the junior coalition partner. Prior to their going into government in 2007 I would have classed them within the broad left, due to their having generally social democratic policies and being more progressive than Labour on a few human rights issues. But they've been absolutely pathetic in government, having accomplished very little of their own agenda - despite holding the Environment and Energy/Natural Resources ministries - and allowing Fianna Fáil's right wing budget and privatisation measures to go through with very little resistance (or at least that's how it appears to everyone else). End result? Loss of 15 of the 18 local government seats they held, including all nine of their seats in Dublin (a tenth Dublin councillor had already defected a few months before the election). In the Dublin race for the European Parliament they appear to have been outpolled by a former Green MEP, who left the party just a few months ago.
The downside to this where the left is concerned is that the Greens' disastrous showing probably makes it less likely that a general election will be called any time soon. They aren't going to pull out of government, because their only hope for survival as a party is to hang in there long enough until (they hope) it blows over. Fianna Fáil themselves also did so poorly in the elections, they aren't going to be anxious for another election either. And while Labour had their best local election showing ever, they were still significantly behind Fine Gael - so even if there was an election, the end result would still be a coalition led by a conservative party. Still, especially compared to some of the results we're hearing from elsewhere in Europe, the Irish left can be reasonably cheerful.