Sinn Féin, which is straining to keep its anti-austerity policies north and south of the border in alignment, warned of an impending crisis that could "engulf the political institutions" of Northern Ireland.
Depression, divorce and dependency can engulf even old hands – and when Kennedy was elected, he was a 23-year-old from a remote Scottish farming community who'd only been to London twice before.
Such is the scale of the catastrophe that may be about to engulf the Labour party in Scotland that commentators and analysts are now deploying apocalyptic imagery to measure it.
Even if Labour are reduced to a mere rump of Scottish seats after 7 May, they ought to draw some comfort from the fact that the flames may soon also engulf the SNP.
As Sutton's followers chanted their heroes home, the orange-bibbed stewards were overwhelmed by supporters surging on to the turf at Gander Green Lane to engulf the brave men who had endured the best Coventry could throw at them in the frantic final 15 minutes.
That flood will engulf the economy, as those who lose their jobs spend less and those who keep them save more in case they too are sacked.
Her demand that creditors must share in the losses triggered what is now being called the "Merkel crash", which threatens to engulf not just Ireland but Portugal, Spain and even Italy.
Kadima is split, has no real political base or ideology, and corruption scandals threaten to engulf Mr Olmert and his finance minister.
The Port Said families are furious; their innocent sons, they say, have been wrongly condemned by a politicised court to avoid the chaos that would engulf Cairo if the victims of the pitch invasion mostly supporters of Cairo's Ahly club were not avenged.
This is what allows things like amoebae to move around and engulf their prey.
The economic turmoil sweeping Asia was expected to turn south and engulf a country whose economy has been notoriously prone to boom-bust cycles.
