Submission statement: Fianna Fáil (Renew), once the indomitable beast of Irish politics, turns 100 years old. From near death in 2011 it re-emerged as the largest party in 2024. Its course and survival could offer some lessons for broadly centrist parties struggling to maintain their positions in a volatile electoral landscape.
> The first thing to be said about Fianna Fáil as it turns 100 is that, like any centenarian, the party is doing well to be still around. It is no mean feat.
> When Fianna Fáil turned 85, in the months following the post-crash massacre in the 2011 general election, Micheál Martin, then its new leader, gave an address at a party meeting in Tipperary intended to rally a diminished and demoralised organisation. The text was emailed by party headquarters to every member that evening.
> Martin sought to draw on the resolve of its founders to inspire those who now sought to rebuild the party.
> “They were not going to walk away from their responsibilities to the Irish people and, in our generation, nor will we,” he said.
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> But the Irish people seemed at best uninterested and more commonly just hostile to the party in 2011. The outlook in the wake of the financial crisis and the electoral destruction of Fianna Fáil was grim.
> In his history of the party published later that year, the late Noel Whelan, commentator and former candidate, concluded that it “remains to be seen whether Fianna Fáil will be around to commemorate any more significant anniversaries. The omens are not good for its recovery.”
> But recover it has, and this weekend in Dublin the party will mark 100 years since Éamon de Valera, Constance Markievicz, Sean Lemass and a group of republicans who had split from the anti-treaty Sinn Féin met at the La Scala Theatre just off O’Connell Street in Dublin city centre (where discount clothes shop Penneys now stands).
> That day, they founded what would go on to become one of the most successful political parties in the world.
> The party, established in 1926, held sway over politics for most of the existence of the independent Irish State, quickly becoming the natural party of government and the force against which all other political actors were forced to judge themselves.
> By the time it reached the early years of the new millennium, both the list of its achievements, and the rap sheet of its crimes and misdemeanours, its failures and scandals, were each lengthy. But it was still on top, scoring 40 per cent or so of the public vote in every election, and the largest party in every Dáil.
> Bertie Ahern, party leader from 1994 to 2008, winning three general elections, was the latest in a series of leaders who dominated Irish politics. That period of pre-eminence ended abruptly with the 2008 financial crash, and in the political meltdown that followed Fianna Fáil was almost immolated. But it survived.
> And within an astonishingly short period of time it was back at the centre of Irish politics, facilitating a minority Fine Gael-Independent government in 2016 before taking the final step – once unimaginable but by then inevitable – of a full coalition with its old enemy in 2020.
> In 2024, it became once again the largest party in the Dáil and the coalition with Fine Gael was returned to power.
> “For much of my time on the Dáil, there were many predicting the demise of Fianna Fáil. I remember a TD from another party in 2011 confidentially predicting that there would be no Fianna Fáil in 2021,” recalls Mayo TD and Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary, speaking in advance of the party’s ardfheis in Dublin this weekend.
> “He lost his seat in the 2016 election to a Fianna Fáil candidate.
> “I’m not complacent about our future but work every day to try and secure it,” he adds.
> For all of the satisfaction at the triumphant return to the number one spot, Fianna Fáil at 100 is a much-diminished force. It is about half its previous size, and is no longer exceptional – and no longer the great machine. It is disproportionally reliant on older and rural voters.
> “There is an inevitable further decline in that demographic reality,” says Theresa Reidy, a political-science professor at UCC.
> “Fianna Fáil specifically lost its connection to an important component of its vote base in 2011 following the economic collapse. It destroyed its reputation for competence at governing for an important group of its supporters. Those voters moved to Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, Independents and other small parties, and Fianna Fáil has not been able to entice them back.”
> The party says it has about 15,000 members now; in the late 1980s, it reported 90,000, though given the widespread existence of “paper” cumainn, that number is open to question.
> There is an unease that the party’s only current route to government is with its old rival. The complexity of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael relationship would take an army of shrinks to analyse
> What is beyond question is that membership of Fianna Fáil has plummeted, though this has been a common occurrence among big parties, all across Europe. In fact, Fianna Fáil seems to have adapted to this trend better than many.
> “How healthy is the organisation? Look at our election results,” says one senior party figure. “Our organisation was out – we out-canvassed everyone else. The ground war still matters.”
> Notwithstanding recent election results, however, there is an unease about the future among many in the party.
> The parliamentary party habitually rumbles about a possible heave against the leader; younger TDs privately (and sometimes publicly) vent frustrations that the party seems to have little to offer their generation. And there is an unease that the party’s only current route to government is with its old rival. The complexity of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael relationship would take an army of shrinks to analyse.
> There will be no coalition with Sinn Féin under the current leader. But the current leader will not be around forever.
> “I wouldn’t become overly attached to any one coalition arrangement because ultimately governments will depend on where manifestos align, what parties can agree in a programme for government and what the public mandate is after each election,” says Naoise Ó Cearbhaill, one of Fianna Fáil’s younger TDs.
> “That could involve one or several parties across the political spectrum.”
> Although grassroots opinion might be opposed to a Sinn Féin coalition now, once upon a time – not so long ago – you could have said the same thing about coalition with Fine Gael.
> What is undoubtedly true is that the party’s willingness to adapt to external changes will continue to guide its future, just as it has in the past.
> From the start, Fianna Fáil was adept at the art of the U-turn. The most obvious was de Valera’s acceptance of the oath of allegiance to the British king (“an empty formula”) to enter the Dáil in 1927.
> Soon after that, he gave a speech at Blackrock Town Hall in which he rejected “the suggestion now being put forward that our purpose in entering the Free State Dáil is to destroy it”.
> “That is a falsehood. We are entering it in the hope of helping to make it develop to be what it should be ultimately – the sovereign assembly of the Irish nation.”
> It sounded a lot like the “freedom to achieve freedom” argument presented by de Valera’s rival, Michael Collins, to accept the divisive 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty.
> U-turns on protectionism, coalition, Northern Ireland and various social issues would follow. Flexibility, pragmatism, a willingness to adapt – along with a ruthless and unceasing dedication to winning and retaining power – these have been the party’s hallmarks.
> A century on, that is unlikely to change.
> “We will remain strong as long as we remain relevant,” says Calleary.
> “We will remain relevant as long as we are addressing the challenges people are facing in their daily lives, as long as we are creating opportunities for people, for communities and for our country.”
> At the party’s first ardfheis after the crash, the British political scientist and historian of the Conservative Party, Tim Bale, addressed delegates. He gave it to them straight: “Nobody is interested in anything you are saying,” he said. But he also gave them hope that they could recover.
> What does he think now?
> “All I’d say, from a British perspective, is Fianna Fáil under Micheál Martin could certainly teach the Tories and Labour a thing or two about how best to survive the death of two-party politics,” he says.
> “Rather than waste too much time lamenting its passing, Fianna Fáil managed with surprising speed to adjust to the new reality it reluctantly found itself facing: whether the UK’s ‘legacy parties’ will be able to pull off the same trick looks highly debatable right now.”
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Submission statement: Fianna Fáil (Renew), once the indomitable beast of Irish politics, turns 100 years old. From near death in 2011 it re-emerged as the largest party in 2024. Its course and survival could offer some lessons for broadly centrist parties struggling to maintain their positions in a volatile electoral landscape.
> The first thing to be said about Fianna Fáil as it turns 100 is that, like any centenarian, the party is doing well to be still around. It is no mean feat.
> When Fianna Fáil turned 85, in the months following the post-crash massacre in the 2011 general election, Micheál Martin, then its new leader, gave an address at a party meeting in Tipperary intended to rally a diminished and demoralised organisation. The text was emailed by party headquarters to every member that evening.
> Martin sought to draw on the resolve of its founders to inspire those who now sought to rebuild the party.
> “They were not going to walk away from their responsibilities to the Irish people and, in our generation, nor will we,” he said.
READ MORE
> But the Irish people seemed at best uninterested and more commonly just hostile to the party in 2011. The outlook in the wake of the financial crisis and the electoral destruction of Fianna Fáil was grim.
> In his history of the party published later that year, the late Noel Whelan, commentator and former candidate, concluded that it “remains to be seen whether Fianna Fáil will be around to commemorate any more significant anniversaries. The omens are not good for its recovery.”
> But recover it has, and this weekend in Dublin the party will mark 100 years since Éamon de Valera, Constance Markievicz, Sean Lemass and a group of republicans who had split from the anti-treaty Sinn Féin met at the La Scala Theatre just off O’Connell Street in Dublin city centre (where discount clothes shop Penneys now stands).
> That day, they founded what would go on to become one of the most successful political parties in the world.
> The party, established in 1926, held sway over politics for most of the existence of the independent Irish State, quickly becoming the natural party of government and the force against which all other political actors were forced to judge themselves.
> By the time it reached the early years of the new millennium, both the list of its achievements, and the rap sheet of its crimes and misdemeanours, its failures and scandals, were each lengthy. But it was still on top, scoring 40 per cent or so of the public vote in every election, and the largest party in every Dáil.
> Bertie Ahern, party leader from 1994 to 2008, winning three general elections, was the latest in a series of leaders who dominated Irish politics. That period of pre-eminence ended abruptly with the 2008 financial crash, and in the political meltdown that followed Fianna Fáil was almost immolated. But it survived.
> And within an astonishingly short period of time it was back at the centre of Irish politics, facilitating a minority Fine Gael-Independent government in 2016 before taking the final step – once unimaginable but by then inevitable – of a full coalition with its old enemy in 2020.
> In 2024, it became once again the largest party in the Dáil and the coalition with Fine Gael was returned to power.
> “For much of my time on the Dáil, there were many predicting the demise of Fianna Fáil. I remember a TD from another party in 2011 confidentially predicting that there would be no Fianna Fáil in 2021,” recalls Mayo TD and Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary, speaking in advance of the party’s ardfheis in Dublin this weekend.
> “He lost his seat in the 2016 election to a Fianna Fáil candidate.
> “I’m not complacent about our future but work every day to try and secure it,” he adds.
> For all of the satisfaction at the triumphant return to the number one spot, Fianna Fáil at 100 is a much-diminished force. It is about half its previous size, and is no longer exceptional – and no longer the great machine. It is disproportionally reliant on older and rural voters.
> “There is an inevitable further decline in that demographic reality,” says Theresa Reidy, a political-science professor at UCC.
> “Fianna Fáil specifically lost its connection to an important component of its vote base in 2011 following the economic collapse. It destroyed its reputation for competence at governing for an important group of its supporters. Those voters moved to Sinn Féin, Fine Gael, Independents and other small parties, and Fianna Fáil has not been able to entice them back.”
> The party says it has about 15,000 members now; in the late 1980s, it reported 90,000, though given the widespread existence of “paper” cumainn, that number is open to question.
> There is an unease that the party’s only current route to government is with its old rival. The complexity of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael relationship would take an army of shrinks to analyse
> What is beyond question is that membership of Fianna Fáil has plummeted, though this has been a common occurrence among big parties, all across Europe. In fact, Fianna Fáil seems to have adapted to this trend better than many.
> “How healthy is the organisation? Look at our election results,” says one senior party figure. “Our organisation was out – we out-canvassed everyone else. The ground war still matters.”
> Notwithstanding recent election results, however, there is an unease about the future among many in the party.
> The parliamentary party habitually rumbles about a possible heave against the leader; younger TDs privately (and sometimes publicly) vent frustrations that the party seems to have little to offer their generation. And there is an unease that the party’s only current route to government is with its old rival. The complexity of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael relationship would take an army of shrinks to analyse.
> There will be no coalition with Sinn Féin under the current leader. But the current leader will not be around forever.
> “I wouldn’t become overly attached to any one coalition arrangement because ultimately governments will depend on where manifestos align, what parties can agree in a programme for government and what the public mandate is after each election,” says Naoise Ó Cearbhaill, one of Fianna Fáil’s younger TDs.
> “That could involve one or several parties across the political spectrum.”
> Although grassroots opinion might be opposed to a Sinn Féin coalition now, once upon a time – not so long ago – you could have said the same thing about coalition with Fine Gael.
> What is undoubtedly true is that the party’s willingness to adapt to external changes will continue to guide its future, just as it has in the past.
> From the start, Fianna Fáil was adept at the art of the U-turn. The most obvious was de Valera’s acceptance of the oath of allegiance to the British king (“an empty formula”) to enter the Dáil in 1927.
> Soon after that, he gave a speech at Blackrock Town Hall in which he rejected “the suggestion now being put forward that our purpose in entering the Free State Dáil is to destroy it”.
> “That is a falsehood. We are entering it in the hope of helping to make it develop to be what it should be ultimately – the sovereign assembly of the Irish nation.”
> It sounded a lot like the “freedom to achieve freedom” argument presented by de Valera’s rival, Michael Collins, to accept the divisive 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty.
> U-turns on protectionism, coalition, Northern Ireland and various social issues would follow. Flexibility, pragmatism, a willingness to adapt – along with a ruthless and unceasing dedication to winning and retaining power – these have been the party’s hallmarks.
> A century on, that is unlikely to change.
> “We will remain strong as long as we remain relevant,” says Calleary.
> “We will remain relevant as long as we are addressing the challenges people are facing in their daily lives, as long as we are creating opportunities for people, for communities and for our country.”
> At the party’s first ardfheis after the crash, the British political scientist and historian of the Conservative Party, Tim Bale, addressed delegates. He gave it to them straight: “Nobody is interested in anything you are saying,” he said. But he also gave them hope that they could recover.
> What does he think now?
> “All I’d say, from a British perspective, is Fianna Fáil under Micheál Martin could certainly teach the Tories and Labour a thing or two about how best to survive the death of two-party politics,” he says.
> “Rather than waste too much time lamenting its passing, Fianna Fáil managed with surprising speed to adjust to the new reality it reluctantly found itself facing: whether the UK’s ‘legacy parties’ will be able to pull off the same trick looks highly debatable right now.”
https://archive.md/AT6Qx
the polls aren’t good though
https://preview.redd.it/uvwankq0mp1h1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=06ed939e8cfec4d065dd97efcb9ac62743907de6