What a difference (just over half) a year makes. Many of us in the Republic looked at the local and European elections in 2019 and concluded that come the inevitable 2020 general election, three things would happen: the Greens would surge, Sinn Féin would struggle, and we’d be left with a ‘rainbow coalition’ of Fianna Fáil, Labour and the Greens (or some combination along those lines anyhow). How wrong many of us were.

 

A seismic shift

If you’d told me that Sinn Féin would emerge from the election as the party with the most first preferences – ahead of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – I’d have assumed you were either a fully paid-up, overly optimistic party activist, or else you were absolutely mad. By all indications, Sinn Féin was on the decline. The party’s poor performance in the big two elections last year pointed towards that, as did recent by-elections in which, despite winning one seat, the party’s showing was still somewhat lacklustre.

This time, however, it cannot be denied that Sinn Féin have had an excellent election in the Republic. Breaking the two-party duopoly had always been the dream of many smaller parties. To quote Eamonn Gilmore, former leader of Irish Labour, he wanted Ireland to move beyond the old ‘two-and-a-half party system’. Gilmore got his wish, but probably not in the way he would have envisaged. The doors to power have been blown wide open for another challenger to enter.

If there’s one sign that the party itself didn’t see the surge coming, it’s the fact that it didn’t stand in enough seats to benefit from such a high level of voter support. Beyond first preferences, early tallies indicate that Sinn Féin has at least partly lost its ‘transfer toxic’ status. If you look at the demographic breakdown, it is the most popular party amongst every age group below the age of 65, suggesting that pretty much everyone in work, with kids or paying extortionate rents is sick to the teeth of the current arrangement.

As both pre-election polling and the eventual exit poll showed, there was a huge appetite for change, and it seemed that no amount of reminders about who Sinn Féin were in the past was going to scare people into sticking with the big two parties that have dominated Ireland for nearly a century.

There are a few questions that will be answered over the coming days and weeks. What does this result mean for Fine Gael, for example? Will Leo Varadkar stay on as party leader, in spite of this poor showing? How disappointed will Micheál Martin be? Will he be the victim of an internal party leadership challenge? What about Brendan Howlin and Labour? Will the party even exist after this? And, thinking beyond each of the parties, there is the obvious question: how on earth can a government be formed on these numbers?

 

Implications for unionism

In the midst of all of these questions facing the South, the question I’m going to consider is this: What does this mean for ourselves ‘up North’? I suspect that some unionists will have been watching events in the Republic unfold from behind the sofa. The ‘auld enemy’, having broken down the gates to power in Stormont, is now close to doing so in the Republic. One could remark that, given both the outcome of Brexit negotiations and the DUP’s fall from power in Westminster, many within the unionist community may also be feeling either abandoned and possibly resigned to their fate. With Sinn Féin surging in the Republic, a border down the Irish Sea and both sides of the island aligned to European markets, how long until they’re formally united politically as well? Would it necessarily even be that bad?

If the main unionist parties do want to avert this ‘end of days’ scenario, a change in approach will be needed. This may be easier for the UUP given Mike Nesbitt’s recent tenure: whilst his transfer pact with the SDLP didn’t fully pay dividends, his willingness to both take that risk – plus attend the SDLP’s conference – shows that a liberal, more inclusive unionism does exist. It also means a change of tack in how unionists approach working with the likes of Sinn Féin or the SDLP in Stormont.

A hardline style of unionism – defined by belligerence and sectarianism – won’t cut it. Neither will deferring to loyalist paramilitaries and so-called ‘charitable organisations’ within unionist strongholds like East Belfast. Such deference not only harms the ability of unionist politicians to build bridges within Stormont; it widely discredits and tarnishes the wider unionist idea in the eyes of younger, post-1998 voters.

In other words, the implications of the election for unionism are not inevitable, but neither is the task facing unionists a straightforward one.

 

Implications for unity

The result in the Republic also means that, even if Sinn Féin don’t enter into government, the party will likely be the largest opposition party in the Dáil by some distance, an unprecedented feat. Regardless of how inclusive unionists try to make unionism as an ideological brand, the push for Irish unity will not only continue but will do so with renewed vigour, both north and south of the border. Sinn Féin is on the cusp of being the largest party in both jurisdictions, having already claimed the title of biggest all-island party (which in fairness isn’t difficult, given only the Greens really contest elections both sides of the border).

However, it should be noted that, whilst a prospective referendum on Irish unity has been mooted as Sinn Féin’s only precondition for going into government, it is only the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland who can actually grant a meaningful one. It is for this reason that Sinn Féin, following their impressive showing in the Republic, will be eyeing the next local and legislative elections in Northern Ireland. Similar to the SNP’s situation in Scotland, if the next set of elections to Stormont result in a resounding victory, not simply for Sinn Féin, but for Irish nationalism as a whole, can the UK Government really not hold a border poll?

 

Concluding thoughts

Whatever the overall outcome, things really have, to borrow a phrase from Ireland’s most famed poet,  ‘changed, changed utterly’ (I suppose whether or not you see this new alignment as a ‘terrible beauty’ being ‘born’ depends on your perspective). One thing is certain: this is a huge watershed moment in Irish politics.

Indeed, had Sinn Féin not based their election strategy on their poor showing at the 2019 local and European elections, they may have had enough seats to be the largest party in the Dáil, possibly even enough to form a majority had things gone as well as they have done thus far.

Much like in Northern Ireland, the party that once mocked the institutions of the state – and, for a certain period during the 20th Century, entirely opposed them – is now on the verge of controlling how at least some of them work. Interesting, if uncertain, times lie ahead for us all, no matter what side of that borderline we find ourselves on.