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| Sinn Féin President Mary Lou MacDonald/ An Phoblacht |
The left-wing republican party received 24.5 per cent of first preference votes cast - up 10.7 percent on 2016 - and topped the poll in over 20 constituencies.
Many candidates were elected on the first count, often in areas that had never returned a Sinn Féin TD (member of the Irish parliament, the Dáil) before, and seventeen of the top 20 high-polling candidates came from Sinn Féin.
With counting now complete, Sinn Féin has won 37 seats in the 160-seat Dáil, an increase of fifteen. For the first time ever, each of Ireland’s 32 counties is now represented by a Sinn Féin TD or MP.
The last time Sinn Féin topped the polls nationally was at all-Ireland elections held in 1918, in a result that paved the way for the first Dáil and the War of Independence against Britain.
Outgoing government party Fine Gael took 35 seats (down 12), while Fianna Fáil received 38 (down 7) - although one seat was due to the automatic reappointment of the Ceann Comhairle (Speaker of the Dáil).
Having received setbacks in last year’s local and European elections, Sinn Féin ran only 42 candidates. As a result of the late surge in support, in several constituencies where they ran only one candidate Sinn Féin received close to - or even in excess of - the mandate for a second seat.
A successful strategy of “vote left, transfer left”, however, meant that large numbers of Sinn Féin preference votes helped elect other left wing and progressive candidates.
The socialist Solidarity-People Before Profit alliance secured five seats, with returning TD Richard Boyd Barrett topping the poll in Dún Laoghaire.
Labour and the Social Democrats took six seats each, while the Greens won twelve mandates - reaching double figures for the first time.
Ireland also bucked the trend prevailing in Europe of right-wing nationalist parties taking advantage of public discontent. The slew of far-right, anti-immigration candidates on offer received negligible results, failing to even regain their deposits.
The election result comes as a blow to both Ireland’s major right-wing parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who between them have dominated politics in the Irish state for a century.
It is the first time in the history of the Republic that neither party has won the popular vote, and their combined vote share has been reduced to a mere 43 percent. Both parties lost vote share and seats, and some constituencies failed to elect a TD from either party for the first time ever.
During the election, the outgoing conservative Fine Gael government had hoped to capitalise on strong economic figures, recent referenda legalising abortion and equal marriage rights, and the high profile role Ireland played in Europe during the Brexit negotiations.
Fianna Fáil, their support having recovered since the economic collapse after 2008, sought to take advantage of voter frustration with the Fine Gael government. At the same time, they hoped that voters would forget that they had kept that same government in power via a “confidence-and-supply” arrangement throughout its term.
Both parties also united to make harsh attacks on Sinn Féin, ruling out working with the left-wing party after the elections. They joined the mainstream media chorus that Sinn Féin was not a “normal party”, scaremongering about “shadowy figures” controlling it from behind the scenes and about Sinn Féin’s historical links to the long-ended armed struggle in the six counties still under British occupation.
Voters, however, were less interested in scare-tactics and macroeconomic figures than in hospital waiting lists, soaring rents, the homelessness crisis, insurance costs, and increases to the pension age.
The 2008 economic collapse, bank bail-outs and vicious austerity measures left deep wounds in Irish society, and while the economy has officially recovered, the vast majority of ordinary people have not seen the benefits.
The Republic of Ireland, with barely 5 million people, has over 10,000 homeless each week, and more than a third of those in emergency accommodation are children.
In 2018, 50% of the adults aged under 30 were living at home with their parents, due to skyrocketing rents, and there are over 200,000 children living in poverty.
After a decade of austerity, it is little surprise that resentment continued to grow against the two pro-business parties, who have run the state between them since independence.
Sinn Féin, on the other hand, campaigned on the theme “time for change”, and a robust left-wing manifesto titled “Giving workers and families a break”.
Their platform included a rent freeze, a refundable tax credit to reduce rents by up to €1,500, building 100,000 new affordable and social houses over five years, tax cuts on the first €30,000 to help low income earners, restoring the pension age to 65, hiring thousands of nurses, and investing in hospital beds and free GP care.
This message cut through a hostile media and resonated with an electorate desperate for change. On election day, exit polls showed Sinn Féin with the highest support of any party for the entire working age population, in all age groups from 18-65 years. Only in the over-65s did that support drop.
Speaking in Dublin after the vote, Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald described the result as a "revolution in the ballot box”.
“The two party system in this State is now broken, it has been dispatched into the history books,” she said.
“The election is about a real appetite for political change, and that means a change in government.”
“This vote for Sinn Féin is for Sinn Féin to be in government, for Sinn Féin to deliver.”
“My first port of call is the other parties to see whether or not can we actually have a new government, a government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.”
The day after the final results were announced, Sinn Féin declared that it would look immediately to form a “government of change” that “delivers on the big issues of housing, of health and climate change, on the right to a pension at 65, and that gives workers a break”.
Despite winning the popular vote, however, Sinn Féin will struggle to form what would be the first left-wing government in the history of the state.
With only 37 seats, even with the support of progressive parties and independents it would fall well short of the 80 seats needed to form government.
If Sinn Féin cannot form its preferred left-wing coalition, excluding the two major parties, it may be forced to consider working with Fianna Fáil and one or more of the other small parties.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil had both previously ruled out working with Sinn Féin, and Fine Gael has maintained its hard line after the vote, ruling out any coalition.
On the other hand, Ireland’s traditional “party of government”, Fianna Fáil, is desperate for a return to power and party leader Micheál Martin appeared to soften in tone towards Sinn Féin after results were released.
The party remains split, however, between those stung by the voter backlash over their confidence-and-supply deal with Fine Gael, and those whose hatred of Sinn Féin outweighs their political opportunism.
Even if a deal can be struck, any decision about entering government would need first to be agreed on by Sinn Féin’s membership in a special Ard Fheis (national conference). There is no guarantee it would win support.
Contained in the price for any coalition with Sinn Féin would also be securing a referendum on Irish unity - an issue that has been pushed to the fore by Brexit.
Even though Sinn Féin didn’t campaign heavily on its signature issue in this election, exit polls showed 57% of voters support holding a referendum on Irish unity within the next five years.
Another option for government would be for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil - and a smaller party such as the Greens - to enter into a “grand coalition”. Given the history of the two major parties, and their rivalry since the Irish Civil War, this would seem very unlikely.
It would also grant Sinn Féin undisputed status as the official opposition, to expose and pick apart the right wing policies that such a government would inevitably impose.
If no deal is struck in coming weeks, a new election would have to be called. If Sinn Féin’s level of support holds, they could expect to gain several more seats, and the balance of power could change clearly in their favour - another issue clouding the minds of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.
For the time being, however, Sinn Féin is keen to find a way into government in order to get to work fixing the social problems created by decades of right-wing rule.
As Mary Lou McDonald told reporters in Dublin, “we are not doing another five years of housing crisis, that is not on the agenda”.
“We want families and workers to have breathing space, I mean financial, economic security and breathing space,” she said.
Whatever happens next, one thing is clear. This is a watershed moment for Sinn Féin and Irish politics. All is changed, changed utterly.
