Election '24 looks routine but it may be epic

What kind of election will this be? Will it be an epic or a bit of a damp squib? The signs so far are that it will be pretty routine rather than seismic, but you never know what any election means until at least the votes are counted. Sometimes that’s only the starting point; for many of our elections over the years, we only fully realised their significance long after they were over. Could that be on the cards this time?

How can you tell the difference between an epic election, an important one, and a routine one? Is it because of a huge win or loss for one party or other? Or because the result brought some decisive shift to our direction as a country? Or does one of those need the other?

What does our election history teach us about how to spot an actually epic election?

Let’s start with an easy one. The 1918 election was obviously epic both because it was a huge win for Sinn Féin at the expense of the Home Rule Party, and because it completely altered our direction as a country. No 1918 election, no independence. It also meant, of course, that partition was certain, because the result showed that a large block of the country wanted to get out of the UK. At the same time, it made it very clear that a sizable part did not.

The next epic election was in 1922. Its significance rests in the fact that it decided the question of the Treaty. The pro-Treaty side won, and won well – even if it took some a long time to understand what that meant.

Some of those slow-learning people were the winners in the next undoubtedly seismic election in our history, in 1932. That brought Fianna Fáil to power – just about. The minority Fianna Fáil government which resulted from that election was significant because of what it meant for our future.

It meant that there was not going to be a broad alignment with Britain, and that we were going for a ‘hard independence’. It also meant that we were going to really go for an economic policy of protection to grow our economy. The result led to many former landlords and old vestiges and representatives of the British state giving up on Ireland. They understood what it meant, and many left the country. It was thus the real end of Anglo-Irish Ireland, at least in the 26 counties.

It meant that the vast majority of the anti-Treaty Republicans would be reconciled to the state and indeed to democracy. That – as de Valera intended – brought about a stability to the state which even those who opposed him in 1922-23 had to accept, albeit with grumbles. It was why William T Cosgrave accepted the transfer of power and discouraged any attempt to resist the handover, choosing instead to play cards in Leinster House.

Even though it happened before the rise of Hitler in Germany, we can see now that the result of the 1932 election also meant there was no doubt we would stay out of the Second World War. With all its major significance, 1932 was therefore an epic result by any standard.

The next possibly epic candidate was in 1948. By proving that an alternative government to Fianna Fáil was possible, the first inter-party government ensured that we would not become a one-party state. By proving that it was possible to govern with more than one party, the idea of coalition government survived its first test. The strange amalgam of parties, with Clann na Poblachta full of anti-Fianna Fáil IRA men, aligned with hardline pro-Treaty Fine Gaelers, produced odd results: not least a Fine Gael Taoiseach declaring us a Republic. But was that epic? Perhaps important is a better word for it. Was the era of epic elections over? Most significant elections after that date are perhaps better called important rather than epic, but there are exceptions.

The next election that might be one of those exceptions was in 1957. On the surface it seems like the opposite of epic and not even that important, returning a jaded Fianna Fáil and de Valera to power. But it was much bigger than we appreciated. For this was the changing of the guard election. The government that was formed would ultimately be led by Seán Lemass, and it was a government that dumped protectionism and went for free trade. That changed the course of everything.

The three general elections in 1981-82 were epic only if you mean that they were a dramatic and great battle, rather than that they were of real importance. They are of significance primarily in that they proved our political system could survive convulsions – just about. The 1989 election was important because it led to Fianna Fáil entering coalition for the first time. The principle of coalition became copper fastened and one-party rule ended in Ireland just as it was ending in Eastern Europe, albeit that was of a different type.

Labour’s 19% of the vote in the 1992 election was significant in that it was an early indicator of the type of Ireland that was coming. It is worth remembering that it meant the party was still a clear third. But while its importance can be overstated, it was no small matter.

The 1997 election was important in as much as it decided who got to spend the Celtic Tiger money. By winning it, Fianna Fáil were able to win two more elections on the back of it. It delayed what would have been a likely decline of Fianna Fáil as the country changed, but they paid the price for that when the music stopped. That led to the 2011 ‘democratic revolution’ election, when Fianna Fáil lost so much support that their percentage of the vote ever since has remained effectively halved.

Our most recent elections are important in that 2016 produced a novel enough form of government for us, a minority government supported by an opposition party. We had something like it before – Labour supporting Fianna Fáil from 1932-33; the Tallaght Strategy of Alan Dukes from 1987-89 – but not on the scale we saw during this time. 2020 had certainly something of the epic about it in that the Sinn Féin breakthrough was both huge for them and broke the stranglehold the two big parties have had since independence.

Were all the other elections routine? At the time they didn’t seem so, but looking back, you would have to conclude they were.

What will this one be? Two things will decide that. First, the result. If there is a breakthrough and a new government of the left, that would be epic. If the current government is (mostly) returned, that will feel routine. If our politics becomes so fragmented that forming a government becomes near impossible, that will seem important.

Second, and what will actually decide how this election is viewed, is what happens over time, in the years to come. For if the Corporation Tax bubble bursts, what we have spent the last few weeks talking about it will seem very odd, even surreal. If that happens, the reaction among the electorate will – and this we can be sure of – be epic indeed.