Under Storm Ciara

February 8: Ireland General Election
Sinn Féin: 24.5% 
Fianna Fail: 22.2 % 
Fine Gael: 20.9%   
Green Party: 7.1%
Labour Party: 4.4%
Social Democrats: 2.9%
Solidarity–People Before Profit: 2.6%
Aontú: 1.9%
Independent: 12.2%
Other: 1.3%

In the past decade, Ireland has emerged from a recession and mobilized for change after enduring a brutal regime of austerity. In recent years, grassroots activists have fought the privatization of public water and protested for a right to affordable housing. 

In 2015, we voted for marriage equality and in 2018 we repealed the constitutional barrier to legal abortion. These votes reflected a society no longer under the sway of repressive moralism, after decades of governments hand in glove with the Catholic Church. 

But despite social change, economic inequality in the country remains pronounced. Crises in health and housing expose this divide. The top 10% holds around half of Ireland’s wealth. Ireland is currently home to many of the largest multinational corporations, which it attracts with a low tax rate. Employment has risen steadily since 2013. But many people work zero-hour contracts or low-paid jobs and the cost of living has risen. For many people, the economic recovery is non-existent. 

So when Sinn Féin, a leftist party committed to Irish unity, surged in the polls on Saturday to win the popular vote, many voters were not surprised. 

Sinn Féin’s win has broken the dominance of two centre-right parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. One or the other party has been in power for nearly a century. 

To some outside of Ireland, Sinn Féin might seem to be an unusual harbinger of progressive change. Its close history with the Provisional IRA and its paramilitarism during the 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland is an issue raised against the party in Ireland too. One of its popular representatives elected in Dublin has acknowledged he was a member of the IRA and was imprisoned for possession of explosives in the 1980s. Until 2018, the party was led by Gerry Adams, who was investigated for the 1972 murder of Jean McConville but was not charged.

Under Mary Lou McDonald, the Dublin-born leader, a new generation of representatives who had no role in the conflict are now the faces of the party, including a widely respected expert on housing policy. Her party has supported progressive social changes both sides of the border over the past years, including the introduction of abortion rights and marriage equality.

Among the youngest voters, between ages 18-34, support for Sinn Féin was around twice that of either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. But Sinn Féin led among all age groups under the age of 65.

Many voters hear McDonald’s words as offering real solutions to urgent crises and a hopeful vision for the future. They have been accused of ignorance when it comes to the past.  Voting Sinn Féin was still “very, very taboo in certain circles,” one woman who voted for them told me. But that is clearly changing.

On election day I spoke to a Montessori teacher, a lawyer, a civil servant, a financial analyst, a taxi driver and an artist who were all voting left in the hope of change, many of them voting for Sinn Féin. Housing was the first word on their lips. Housing prices have risen 94.9% in Dublin since 2012, according to Reuters. Some 10,000 people in Ireland are homeless, around 35% of them children. Housing assistance policies have become a subsidy for landlords and help to buy schemes contributed to rising property prices. 

“Housing is the biggest thing preventing me from moving me back,” a friend who had moved away for university after the crash and was now working in Glasgow told me. Some people feel forced to emigrate now because of the housing crisis.

“I felt I existed,” first-time voter Razan Ibraheem, a Syrian-born activist and journalist living in Dublin told me. “I had an impact and a role to play in Ireland’s present and future.” For her, the most important and urgent issue was the homelessness crisis, with record numbers living in emergency accommodation and people sleeping in tents dotted around the city. She was voting for all left-leaning parties. “Housing should be a human right,” she said. “Health care, rural Ireland and climate are crucial.”

During the election, Sinn Féin made housing a central issue. Their “Battle for Better Housing” promised 100,000 new social houses, freezes on rents and legislation to keep mortgage rates low. The party also supports making housing a constitutional right.

As Storm Ciara howled across the island, I voted in the hall of my old primary school in Dublin where I had also voted to repeal the abortion ban. I took the long paper ballot from one of the eight tables set up that Saturday, strewn with cups of tea and empty chocolate wrappers, to give my preferences down the list. Proportional representation in Ireland means one vote goes further and allows for a campaign of “transfer left” to bolster smaller leftist parties this election.

Later that night, I was on a rain-soaked street with 21-year-old Jordan O’Brien, who serves free dinners every week to people who are homeless in Dublin. People were queuing up for the food in the bitter cold. Jordan struggles to afford rent himself. A friend of his is paying a landlord 300 euro for half of a double bed, shared with a stranger. “They’re the only ones committed to solving the housing crisis,” he said of Sinn Féin, having voted for Mary Lou McDonald. At 10pm, the exit poll showed a three way tie between the two centre-right parties and Sinn Féin, though Sinn Féin would go on to exceed that, taking 24.5% of the vote.

Smaller leftist parties such as the Green Party and Labour Party were both involved in coalitions that imposed austerity cuts and suffered huge fallout in the aftermath. “The only party that seems in any way credible on the left has become Sinn Féin,” one voter told me.

On immigration, the manifestos of other leftist parties offered more progressive change than Sinn Féin’s, such as regularizing the status of undocumented people and voting rights for migrants. Sinn Féin acknowledged the importance of asylum and the contribution of migrant workers, especially in healthcare, but stated that it is against “open borders”. 

As the news of Ireland’s election broke, many international outlets served up headlines that suggested the wave of populist nationalism had finally reached these shores, making parallels with Brexit and Trump. But this election saw a general rejection of far-right candidates that had set up parties canvassing on an ethno-nationalist platform, though a few centre-right independent candidates known for anti-immigrant rhetoric were elected. Immigration and Brexit only mattered to 1% of voters according to an exit poll. 

The main role Brexit has played is fueling support for reunification, which would mean Northern Ireland would no longer be ruled by Britain and automatically return to being within the EU. 

An exit poll found that 57% of voters wanted a border poll within five years to be able to vote for the possibility of a United Ireland. 

Sinn Féin failed to run enough candidates and may not be able to form a government this time because of it, though they hoped to form a coalition of the left and a “government of change”. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have both refused to go into coalition with Sinn Féin. That might change or the centre-right parties could go into coalition with each other. No one yet knows what exactly Ireland’s new government will look like and a second election could be possible. 

However big the changes achieved already in Ireland, hard-won rights can never be taken for granted.

Mary Lou McDonald could be the first woman to hold the office of Taoiseach or head of government. She is the second female president of Sinn Féin. Neither of the centre-right parties have ever elected a woman as leader. A lack of gender balance in governance is a critical issue that might be better addressed next election: Only 36 women were elected to a total of 160 seats. Twelve of the 39 constituencies in Ireland are now all-male and a number of these elected a pro-life candidate.

And while Irish voters made their support of legalization of abortion overwhelmingly known, the abortion legislation is due to come under review in the next few years. Patients still face barriers, such as a mandatory three day waiting period and a lack of safe access zones. 

A few days before the election, a man canvassing the area knocked on my door. He came on behalf of Aontú, a fringe party created after abortion was legalized. He was middle aged, with a broad face and short hair. For a good fifteen minutes, he stood on the front steps of the house I share in Dublin, explaining how his party was glued together by anti-abortion values.  He suggested that there should be “psychiatric facilities” for women so they could make the “right decision” in case there were any “mental issues.”

Still, when the election results came in, Aontú had received only 583 first preference votes out of some 30,000 and was eliminated.