Even if the initial results are taken as a benchmark, it seems the next Dail government will be yet another coalition involving the main establishment parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, along with some Independent TDs, with the Shinners again forming the official opposition in Leinster House.
In the last Dail General Election in 2020, Sinn Fein made the mistake of not running enough candidates - plus the fact the so-called ‘Big Two’ set aside their traditional, political and historic Civil War differences to form a unique coalition to keep Sinn Fein out of power.
With boundary changes and an increase in the number of TDs, could the opposite now be the case for the republican movement - that Sinn Fein has run too many candidates in 2024?
However, it is clearly obvious Santa Claus didn’t receive Sinn Fein’s letter asking for the Christmas wish of being in government power in both Irish parliaments - Stormont and the Dail - by 25 December.
No doubt, as they munch on their Christmas Day turkey and Brussels sprouts, the members of the IRA Army Council will also be digesting - how come Northern Sinn Fein can persuade voters to make Sinn Fein the largest party in the Assembly, but Southern Sinn Fein cannot seem to replicate this success in Leinster House?
Perhaps the conclusion as the New Year beckons is that the IRA Army Council needs to move more Northern Sinn Fein activists into the 26 Counties party organisation. Put bluntly, the question for the republican movement is - who really needs to run Sinn Fein?
Several months ago, the opinion polls were suggesting that Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald was on course to become the next Taoiseach, leading a Sinn Fein majority government.
Those polls gave the impression Southern Sinn Fein was equally on course to deliver an election victory on a par with the 1918 Westminster General Election when Sinn Fein won over 70 of the 105 Commons seats on offer when all of geographical Ireland was under British rule.
No doubt, too, on St Stephen’s Day, that ruling IRA Army Council will also be pondering the various reasons for the drop in the opinion polls and why that drop translated into another period in opposition.
Southern Sinn Fein’s key tactic was to concentrate on the first-time voter, as well as the overall youth vote and voters in their 20s and 30s - namely, the voter base for whom the Provisional IRA’s campaign of terrorist atrocities during the Troubles are merely dates in history books.
If I was a Provo Army Council member I’d be asking - how come Northern Sinn Fein can eat into the electorally lucrative Catholic middle class vote normally held by the SDLP, yet Southern Sinn Fein cannot repeat the same tactic with middle class Catholic voters in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil?
Or is it a case that Southern Sinn Fein simply cannot shake off the perception it is merely a Hard Left communist party under a different name along the lines of James Connolly’s old Irish Socialist Republican Party of the pre-1916 era?
Likewise, Southern Sinn Fein also seems to have been unable to take advantage of the considerable slide in political influence of the Catholic Church in the 26 Counties, mainly because of the clerical abuse sex scandals.
Long gone is the Eamon de Valera era in Southern Irish politics when the Catholic bishops wielded considerable influence in Leinster House. Indeed, Southern Ireland once had the reputation of being one of the most devoutly Catholic states outside of the Vatican itself.
Legislation on same-sex marriage, abortion and assisted dying have now converted Southern Ireland into one of the most secular and pluralist states in Europe. Had the Catholic Church maintained its influence on Southern Irish politics, then Aontu - the strongly pro-life party - would have a very strong showing in Leinster House.
The overall election result could also pose a dilemma for Northern Unionists and Loyalists. The fundamentalist Right-wing of Unionism has always adopted the 20th century war cry that ‘Home Rule means Rome Rule’.
Indeed, even within the broad Protestant Unionist Loyalist (PUL) community, the number of secular pro-Union folk not aligned to any Protestant denomination is viewed to be increasing. The falling numbers in the Sunday pews reflect this assumption.
For the outgoing Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael coalition, the giveaway budget a matter of weeks before last Friday’s election seems to have worked with voters and has fuelled the perception Southern Ireland has money to burn for Northern Ireland.
Ironically, the Irish Unity can would have been kicked further down the political road had earlier opinion polls converted into votes and the outcome of the 2024 Dail election was a Southern Sinn Fein majority government in Leinster House.
Given Sinn Fein’s Left-wing agenda, many Unionists are off the opinion that a Sinn Fein-run government would effectively bankrupt the 26 Counties, leaving Southern Ireland in a Celtic Tiger collapse scenario which the state faced a number of years ago when it took British millions to bail out the economy.
While who Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will need to secure a majority coalition government still needs to be confirmed, other questions in the mixing pot over the festive period include:
- Can Mary Lou survive as Sinn Fein president?
- Should Unionists begin a campaign of persuasion to get Southern Ireland to follow the UK out of the European Union and into the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association?
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
Just goes to show ye how bad they didn't want a Shinner about the Dail.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd wager southerners are highly suspicious of Nordy Shinners and the absolutely huge amount skeletons they have in the closet.
One of the main problems for the Shinners in Republic is that, while professing to be a left-wing party, their economic policies amount to "whatever you are having yourself", Their election manifesto, which was based on assumption that Sinn Fein would discover a whole forest of money trees, could have been written by a child as a letter to Santa. And the adult electorate in the Republic don't believe in Santa.
ReplyDeleteThe other problem is that while the Shinners deny they are under the control of the IRA, the image of the entire Shinner leadership at the Bobby Storey funeral says otherwise.
They have done absolutely nothing of a left-wing nature in Northern Ireland. They have seen that the nationalist community gets their share of the Westminster money pie. But, as most of tthe nationalist community is dependant on that pie for survival, naturally, they will vote Shinner.
As for the middle class in the North, many have safe, secure, Westminster-funded jobs and all they want Sinn Fein / IRA to do is
keep the peace. They know that Northern Ireland is a political and economic basket case (as, I imagine, do many nationalists) and dependent on the Westminster money tap. Neither Sinn Fein or unionist politicians have the slightest interest in what the other community needs.
Being guaranteed the nationalist vote in the North has distorted the Shinners understanding of democracy. The Republic is a real politically and economically independent democracy The Provo contollors of Sinn Fein cannot deal with this. But give it another twenty years or so, and they may get the hang of it. Sinn Fein have always been slow learners
And as for the notion of the Republic leaving thebEU? Get a grip!
ReplyDeleteLastly, as for power sharing in the North, it works like this :- Shinners say "We will use our power to stop you doing anyrging we don't like", Unionists say likewise, Result? Neither side does anything. No wonder the Shinners will never have power in the Republic.
ReplyDeleteTonyol,
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to see Mary Lou's response to the question " Do you view with sincerity, that the Irish Defence Forces are the sole true and legitimate holders of the name Óglaigh na hÉireann?"
Depends on who asks the question. Up North, to the party faithful, her convoluted answer will be capable of being interpreted as "No". Down South the answer will be that "the IRA has gone away" and the question is irrelevant!
ReplyDelete@ Steve & Tony
ReplyDeleteHave a flick through John M Regan's 'Myth & The Irish State: Historical Problems and Other Essays (Irish Academic Press, 2013) or just chew over these lines from the abstract of his paper entitled 'SOUTHERN IRISH NATIONALISM AS A HISTORICAL PROBLEM':
'A dominating southern nationalist interest represented the revolutionary political elite's realpolitik after 1920, though its pan-nationalist rhetoric obscured this. Ignoring southern nationalism as a cogent influence has led to the misrepresentation of nationalism as ethnically homogeneous in twentieth-century Ireland. Once this is identified, historiographical and methodological problems are illuminated, which may be demonstrated in historians' work on the revolutionary period (c. 1912–23). Following the northern crisis's emergence in the late 1960s, the Republic's Irish governments required a revised public history that could reconcile the state's violent and revolutionary origins with its counterinsurgency against militarist-republicanism. At the same time many historians adopted constitutional, later democratic, state formation narratives for the south at the expense of historical precision. This facilitated a broader state-centred and statist historiography, mirroring the Republic's desire to re-orientate its nationalism away from irredentism, toward the conscious accommodation of partition.
Any critique either of you has offered of the Provisional Sinn Féin project is superfluous to the deep-seated structural realities that they have to contend with.
Interesting thanks HJ. Never thought of that but hard to argue with it.
ReplyDelete