Sinn fein

Monday

Ruth Dudley Edwards

Ireland’s election result is bad news for Brexit

Ireland has given its own twist to the populist uprisings across Europe, with its election ushering in a grim time for Anglo-Irish relations. The results from Saturday’s poll – in which Sinn Fein took 24.5 per cent of the vote; Fianna Fáil, 22 per cent; and Fine Gael, 21 per cent – could also cause serious complications in the Brexit negotiations. In so enthusiastically switching its support to Sinn Fein (the party won 13.8 per cent of the vote in 2016), Ireland is endorsing a party that pretends to be democratic, left-wing and progressive but still effectively operates internally along militaristic lines, tolerating no dissent from its elected representatives. As

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Sinn Fein’s surge in the Irish election was a cry of frustration

The people have spoken. Now, what do they mean? That is the first question to be asked in the wake of this Irish election and, as is so often the case, not all the answers to it are elementary and some of them are contradictory. This was both a startling election result and an unsurprising one. Few people, least of all Sinn Fein themselves, thought Mary Lou McDonald’s party would top the poll but some aspects of the result are less surprising. Overall, however, this was both an earthquake election and an inconclusive one. So much so, in fact, that the 33rd Dail may prove a short one. Until the