Watching the election results come in over the weekend, I had several thoughts about what they say about the state of Ireland as we drift towards the end of 2024.
The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that this is a country divided perhaps more by age than anything else. Amongst the older age-groups, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominated the election, according to the exit poll. These are the generations for whom Ireland is, really, a pretty good place: A preponderance of older people own their own homes, often outright. They can look forward to decent pensions. They still get most of their news from the state broadcaster. In their lifetimes (a 70 year old today was born in 1954) Ireland has been economically transformed, and the overall trajectory – absent a few bumps – has been positive.
For the younger voter, thinks are not so straightforward. Home ownership is declining and family formation is delayed. The cost of living for young families with children in particular is extortionate. Of those who own their homes, many are burdened with lengthy mortgages, and long and tiring commutes. The younger a voter is, the more likely they were, in general, to vote against the civil war parties.
The second thought is that the fragmentation of Irish politics is continuing and is likely to continue. On Friday, the two civil war parties recorded their lowest joint share of the vote in the country’s history. With first counts in from all constituencies, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael recorded a joint vote share of 42.66%. By way of contrast, at the 2002 general election the joint FF/FG share was 64%. In the most simple mathematical terms, their voters are dying at a faster rate than the parties are able to replace them. Yet at the same time, both parties are so locked into their core constituencies – and now likely government for another five years – that growing their votes with the younger voters will prove immensely challenging. The other problem for them is that transfer rates between them – FF to FG and vice versa – are so strong and so vital to their electoral chances that they are slowly but inexorably becoming a single political unit tied together at the hip. It is a merger in all but name.
They are being saved from the consequences of this decline in support by political fragmentation amongst the 58% or so of the voters who cast their ballots elsewhere. Of that 58%, about a third of the country (Sinn Fein plus Labour plus Social Democrat plus Green plus People before Profit) is now clearly left wing. The remainder (Independents plus Independent Ireland plus Aontu plus smaller fragments) tends to lean – with some exceptions – to the right of the bigger parties.
The third thought is that some of the most impressive electoral performances on Friday were delivered by TDs who have consistently opposed the Government from the right: Carol Nolan’s phenomenal result in Offally is the brightest spot here, with her friend Mattie McGrath also romping home in South Tipp. Independent Ireland’s three founding members – Michael Collins, Michael Fitzmaurice, and Richard O’Donoghue – all delivered thumping wins. The Healy Raes confirmed their status as de-facto Monarchs of the Kingdom of Kerry. Where voters had the opportunity, over the last five years, to observe cultural populism at work, they tended to reward it handsomely.
The fourth thought is that this is an election it might have been better to lose. The next five years promise significant global turbulence. The most obvious risk factor here is the approach of the Trump administration to trade – but probably the biggest and least appreciated political problem is and will be the commitment of Governments (including Ireland’s) to disastrous climate targets by 2030. These are targets that cannot be met, but which will cause great economic pain to people in the effort to meet them. Nobody can foresee the future, but there is little in the economic or political tea-leaves around the economy, or issues like crime, migration, housing, and the cost of living that suggests that the trend away from the political establishment will reverse itself.
The fifth thought is that the election also showed the importance of approaching politics professionally and comprehensively. Put simply: Absent the strong showing for Gerry Hutch in Dublin Central, the amateur type candidates got crushed and the professional politicians won. RTE made much on Saturday of a tally from Newtownmountkennedy which showed Simon Harris winning over 200 votes to the lone vote cast for citizen journalist and last-minute candidate Philip Dwyer. They were correct to make much of it. On the right, the much-vaunted “national alliance” delivered the sum total of nothing. The gains – marginal though they were – came from much more professional operations like Aontu and Independent Ireland.
Those parties are small enough as yet to be reasonably easily influenced by activists interested in genuine change, but they also now have access to the state funding and infrastructure that will allow them to do politics professionally. That is an opportunity, over the next five years, that people on the right would be borderline insane to decline.
Many will still decline it, no doubt, in favour of tweets and hashtags and social media clout that counts for nothing.
My final, and most optimistic thought, is this: The overton window in Irish politics is drifting, slowly, away from the left. The combined vote of the soft-left-triangle of the Greens, Labour, and Soc Dems was down. More pertinently, the two big parties were forced into retreat in this election on so-called “woke issues” like free speech, NGO funding, migration, and other constitutional radicalism. FG and FF retained the votes they did in part by moving rightwards to assuage voter concerns.
The long term trajectory of Irish politics is broadly unchanged. But change comes slowly and incrementally, and never all at once. Which is why it always makes more sense to be an evolutionary than a revolutionary – especially in a country where so many voters, for very good and selfish reasons, remain fearful of rocking the boat.