Sinn Féin’s turn at the wheel is now just a matter of time

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

One of the million rules of thumb in politics is that crises are almost weekly occurrences. Someone, somewhere in the Government or party apparatus is mucking things up, or up to no good. When it happens – and it often happens big – it can often look like curtains.

Another rule of thumb is that politicians have an incredible knack of surviving those crises. There’s either an apology or an explanation or some kind of sacrificial lamb – and before you know it, the crisis is over, and the party or Government is out the gap.

The reality underlining all of that is what’s true and real at this moment in time may not be true or real by the time we get to next week.

What is easier to identify in politics is a trend that is long term. At the moment the big ones are the continuing – if fitful – demise of the two bigger parties.

The second is the rise of Sinn Féin.

The ascent of the party has not been as meteoric as the original of the species – Fianna Fáil from 1926 onwards.

The party removed its ban on standing in Irish parliamentary elections in 1986 but did not win its first seat in the Dáil until 1997. It has increased its representation since then but gradually and not always going upwards.

The economic crash of 2010 was crucial in that regard. It certainly helped lift Sinn Féin out of a bit of an electoral doldrum it had found itself in. And over the next decade what happened was that its fortunes could be indirectly related to the crash.

Fianna Fáil was very damaged in 2010. It looked like it might be recovering at least of its former glory in the 2016 elections. But that turned out to be a false dawn and masked the party’s deep-seated faults.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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