Despite the lingering pop-culture image of the radical “Irish rebel”, which was given a momentary fillip by the successful marriage equality referendum of 2015, when it comes to the country’s post-independence politics the broad swathe of the Irish people have invariably favoured a form of cautious conservatism, by which I mean a preference for the familiar and the traditional. In part that is simply down to the origins of the modern nation of Ireland and the manner in which the two post-civil war rivals-turned-parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, were integrated into the very institutions of the state itself. In reality the choice has always been a government of FF or of FG, perhaps with the Labour Party (or other minor players) as a prop to either one. However the general election of 2016 seems to have dealt a welcome blow to the two- or three-party monopoly, one that has arguably been inevitable since the 1980s. Despite some establishment journalists issuing warnings about the “fractured” nature of our politics we should see instead a political system made pluralist, one where a wide range of opinions and the expected divisions of Right and Left will be more accurately reflected in An Dáil. In other words, democracy.
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