Hello and welcome to Halfpints, the bonus content of the Irish Passport podcast we make to thank our Patreon supporters.
This episode breaks down six things you need to know to understand Ireland’s election on February 8th. Who are the players, why the election was called, what are the main issues, how the election will work, what are the likely results, and finally: what do the Black and Tans have to do with it?
One: Who are the players?
There are three big parties in the election.
There’s Fine Gael, led by the current Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, which has been in power since 2011. To sum them up: Fine Gael are sometimes described as a liberal-conservative party. What does that mean? It means that Irish political parties don’t neatly fit into the left-right dichotomies of other Anglophone nations for one thing. But it also means this is the party that introduced the landmark liberal reforms of equal marriage and legalised abortion, but that also likes to cut taxes and prides itself on limiting public spending. Varadkar hasn’t actually led his party in an election before, it’s his first time: he became Taoiseach by winning the leadership of his party and replacing former Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
Hoping to replace Fine Gael at the head of government are ancient rivals Fianna Fail, led by Corkman Michael Martin, a veteran of elections who has led his party since 2011. Fianna Fail dominated Irish politics for much of the 20th century, until a spectacular downfall in 2011 in the wake of the financial crisis, when it took much of the blame for Ireland’s economic ruin. Fianna Fail is often described as centre to centre right or a “broad church”: in different eras, it has been a reflection of the Ireland of the time. Its popularity with older, rural and Catholic voters maintains it a socially conservative strain. A significant number of Fianna Fail politicians and supporters were against legalising same-sex marriage and abortion, but Michael Martin led the party into backing a Yes vote in both referendums. Economically, Fianna Fail is more relaxed about public spending than Fine Gael, and under his leadership Michael Martin has tried to define it as even social democratic or left of centre.
Then there’s Sinn Fein, led by Dubliner Mary Lou McDonald who took over from long-time leader Gerry Adams in 2018. Sinn Fein have never been in government in the republic, but of course power-share in Northern ireland’s ruling assembly Stormont. They are an all-island party and their defining issue is unification of the republic and the north. They are left-wing, advocate for solidarity with Catalonia and Palestine, and defined themselves as an anti-austerity party during Ireland’s years of financial hardship that followed its international Bailout. Unlike the EU-friendly Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein express reservations about the European Union project, while shying away from the label of ‘euroskeptic’ in favour of the preferred ‘eurocritical’.
So those are the three big parties. Among the smaller ones, the left-wing Labour party and the Green party have been part of coalitions in the past. Also on the left are the Social Democrats and Solidarity/People before Profit. Then there is a large number of independent politicians, not part of a party, some of whom have been co-opted to shore up the majorities of governments gone by.
Two: Why was the election called?
Since the last election in 2016, Ireland has had a minority government led by Fine Gael. They didn’t have a majority in the Dail, but were leant support by their rivals Fianna Fail in a so-called confidence and supply arrangement to pass legislation. This arrangement looked shaky and threatened to collapse and trigger an election a couple of times when the parties fell out. But as the crisis of Brexit thickened the government benefited from quite a lot of cross-party solidarity. With Ireland at the centre of high-stakes international negotiations, the parties put their differences aside to maintain stability and a common front behind the Taoiseach. The resolution of the first stage of Brexit, and a pause before negotiations start on the future relationship between the UK and EU, created a window of opportunity for Ireland to hold a vote and return — the parties hope — a more stable government. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar clearly hoped that he would be rewarded for his handling of Brexit with more seats.
Three: What are the main issues?
The top concerns for voters are health and housing, according to a poll by the Irish Times and Ipsos MRBI. In the poll, 40 per cent of voters said health was their most important issue, and 32 per cent said housing. Asked which issues would most influence their vote, just a measly 3 percent of the 1,200 voters sampled said Brexit. Just 7 percent said climate change, 7 percent public spending, and 8 percent the economy. Like many developed countries, Ireland is struggling to figure out how to fund a health system with ever more expensive and sophisticated treatments and an aging population that requires ever more care. Particularly in rural areas, access is a problem, and long waiting lists and perennially overcrowded Accident and Emergency rooms are a bane on those trying to get care.
Then there’s housing. Ireland’s economic crash during the global financial crisis caused a near-total collapse in its building industry. House building essentially stopped for years, even as the population increased. It’s only now getting going again and not quickly enough to address a backlog of demand that has caused a severe housing shortage with attendant high prices and soaring rents. Rising rents in particular have pushed increasing numbers of families into homelessness, which has now reached record levels never seen before. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has admitted his government failed to get a grip on the crisis and allowed it to get out of control, and if you ask me, if Fine Gael get a punishing from the electorate, it’s likely to be over this issue.
Four: How will the election work?
Ireland has a proportional representation system and usually has coalition governments. Once, Fianna Fail could pull off outright majorities, but those days are long gone. In the Irish system, voters who go to the polling booth will see a long list of political candidates running in their constituency. The voter is asked to rank the candidates according to their preference, giving number 1 to their favourite, number 2 to their runner up, and so on all the way down. The idea is that the result will be the candidates the voters hate the least. Of the politicians on the list, the top three, four or five will be elected depending on the size of the constituency. Irish elections are relatively low-budget and if you can muster up about 10,000 votes locally, you’re in. This keeps politics very local, and means any prominent local figure with access to support networks is in with a shot. Hence Ireland’s quite large contingent of non-party independent politicians, who made up 12 percent of the last Dail. After polls close at 10pm on Saturday February 8th, there should be an exit poll indicating how the electorate has swung. A proper picture won’t emerge however until well into Sunday, as a picture of the results begins to emerge in the count centres.
Five: What are the likely results?
The most recent poll, by the Irish Times and Ipsos MRBI, has Fianna Fail in the lead at 25 percent, followed by Fine Gael at 23 percent, and Sinn Fein at 21 percent. Among the smaller parties, the Greens are on 8 percent, Labour are on 5, and the Social Democrats and Solidarity People Before Profit have 2 percent each. In terms of trends so far, Fine Gael are down, and Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein are up.
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael have essentially taken turns leading the Irish government since the foundation of the state. The most likely outcome is that the next government will be led by one of them, possibly supported by the other, or by one or two of the smaller parties. Polls suggest Varadkar may struggle to be elected with the increased seats he hoped for. In that case, we may be in for Taoiseach Michael Martin, who would likely seek a coalition with Labour or the Greens. There is another option though: Sinn Fein. Sinn Fein are polling at comparable levels to Fianna Fail and Fine Gael. They have said they would want to lead a progressive alliance in government, which would be a major departure in Irish politics. Were Sinn Fein to go into government with one of the two big parties, it would be more likely to be Fianna Fail. But it remains to be seen whether their support bears out: in previous elections, Sinn Fein’s support in the polls has failed to materialise at the ballot box.
Six: What do the Black and Tans have to do with it?
The Black and Tans episode is one of those crazy debacles that shows why you can never predict an election. Just as the election was being called, a controversy broke out over a decision by the Fine Gael government to hold a commemoration event for the Royal Irish Constabulary at Dublin castle.
Ireland is in its so-called Decade of Centenaries, as various 100-year anniversaries hit of the events that took place around the founding of the state. So far, Fine Gael had been credited with handling these quite well, given how contentious history can be. But this time it was different.
The Royal Irish Constabulary was the semi-military police force under British rule from 1822 to 1922. They provided ordinary policing, but were also the ears, eyes and enforcers of the British state, a role that included the suppression of activism for Irish independence. Members were largely drawn from the local population and some had complex loyalties — this was a rare opportunity for a good job at the time. When the Irish War of Independence broke out in 1919, the RIC members found themselves under siege from the Irish Republican Army, and increasingly confined to their barracks. In response, Britain recruited reinforcements into the RIC: the so-called Black and Tans, most of them veterans of World War One, whose improvised and mismatched uniforms gave them their nickname. The Black and Tans were to work together with the newly-formed Auxiliary division of the RIC, a paramilitary unit formed to lead a counter insurgency campaign against the Irish Republican Army. Both the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans were to become notorious for reprisal killings of civilians, arson, looting, and a general campaign of terror on the populace.
It wasn’t clear who had asked for the RIC to be commemorated, and the choice to go all out with a state event at Dublin Castle seemed a jarring choice. No doubt it was intended as an extension broad minded ethos that characterised the centenary celebrations of 1916, putting an emphasis on multiple perspectives and rejecting a narrow nationalistic interpretation. This has something to do, I suspect, with alienation from the Irish republican tradition during the years of conflict in the North. In its defence, Fine Gael presented the commemoration as a conciliatory gesture towards northern unionists and a test of readiness for unification. But it wasn’t clear that unionists wanted this or even particularly identified with the RIC, but they certainly heard the ensuing rejection loud and clear as the public furore set in. Publicly, the event became popularly understood as a commemoration of the ‘Black and Tans’ — an ungenerous, but not wholly incorrect characterisation as the Black and Tans did operate within the RIC. The Wolfe Tones song Come Out Ye Black and Tans shot to the top of Irish, UK and Australian iTunes.
A poll taken at the height of the controversy showed a surge in support for Fianna Fail to 12 points ahead of Fine Gael. This was possibly a blip, but still a fascinating demonstration of the endurance of the politics of a century ago. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are of course the descendents of opposing sides in Ireland’s Civil War of 1922 to 1923. The Civil War broke out due to a split over whether to accept a peace deal with Britain to end the War of Independence. The side that would become Fine Gael supported accepting limited independence within the British Empire and partition. The side that would become Fianna Fail wanted to keep fighting. That split still exists over whether there is greater patriotism in pragmatism and compromise, or faithfulness to an ideal.
And that’s your election primer! That’s all for this edition of Halfpints, the bonus content of the Irish Passport podcast we make specially to thank our Patreon supporters. You can find our whole archive of bonus episodes over at Patreon.com/theirishpassport. Slán for now.