How the Sinn Féin descent began in a tent in Roscommon
AS their descent in the polls continues, it is looking increasingly like a case of ‘what if’ for Sinn Féin and former Taoiseach-in-waiting Mary Lou McDonald.
Lessons were learned from 2020, when a failure to run enough candidates kept the party a hair’s breadth from power.
Launching their local election campaign last week, a record 335 Sinn Féin candidates were confirmed. But Ms McDonald acknowledged the party is ‘really stretching itself’ in the wake of falling opinion poll figures.
With Fine Gael gaining ground under new leader Simon Harris, Mary Lou must be wondering if they have miscalculated again.
They have also become the most luckless party in the State, with that status confirmed by Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a general election in the UK.
All resources will now be used to guard the Northern heartland, and not the Southern extremity.
MANY believe their slide is irretrievably linked to immigration, and the hardline stance they have adopted, at odds with their younger left-wing base.
Yesterday’s Business Post poll put them at their lowest level since before the 2020 election, down four points to 23% – with a startling seven-point collapse in support from their key demographic of 18-to-34-year-olds.
But Sinn Féin’s increasingly convincing imitation of Eamon Gilmore’s Labour began at a music festival in Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, in September 2022.
The evolution of ‘flip-flop’ Mary Lou has certainly not been helped by immigration, but the first signs of trouble were there at the Night and Day festival’s Sunday of ‘confusion’ in Castlerea.
Like the progressive metropolitans that they are, the mood of the then Sinn Féin power couple Eoin Ó Broin and Lynn Boylan was – amid the glamping, the craft beers and the music – appropriately relaxed.
The pleasant vibe may even have contributed to the carelessness of Ó Broin when he was asked about a high-profile spat at the heart of Government.
The row began when the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) presciently recommended the State had the capacity to ‘prudently’ borrow up to €7billion a year to provide extra funding to build thousands of additional social homes.
Finance Department officials, including chief economist John McCarthy, swiftly filleted the report with a briefing paper that said: ‘The analysis in this report is detached from reality in many respects.’
This ‘wise’ analysis was then obediently parroted by Fine Gael’s fiscal altar boy Paschal Donohoe and other equally wellbehaved economists who are now urging the Government to throw as much cash as they can at the housing crisis.
Understandably, given his economic positioning, Ó Broin, when asked about the issue, said: ‘I think John [McCarthy] should be sacked.’
To be fair to Ó Broin, his position was reasoned.
He added: ‘You have a guy who knows nothing about housing, nothing at all. He is a very, very orthodox, I would argue almost evangelical, economist in terms of his way of seeing things.
‘He was the kind of economist that advised government to do the kinds of things that they did before the crash.’
Of course, in the wake of Ó Broin’s relatively anodyne words, respectable thought swiftly made the usual hysterical entry.
Micheál Martin declared: ‘These type of personal, derogatory comments about civil servants have no place in Irish politics.’
The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants was more than content to ‘absolutely agree’ with the then Taoiseach.
Every mandarin likes a wellhouse-trained politician.
Sinn Féin would have been well advised at this point to believe the bleats of ‘it’s disruptive, shifty and risky’ meant they were on the right track.
Most importantly, the public were all for it.
Instead of digging in and seeing out the storm, Ó Broin decided he was guilty of ‘an ill-judged comment made during a conversation on the housing crisis’, adding: ‘I was deeply frustrated with advice given to Government that they should not increase investment in housing.’
The U-turn alone was unfortunate but the butchering of the retreat was even worse.
The party initially denied that the sacking comment had ever been said and then qualified this with the observation that if it had been said, it had merely been said in a tent in Roscommon which, by some curious force of logic, meant it hadn’t really been said.
Happily, any ‘confusion’ was cleared when a tape was produced of Ó Broin saying what he said he hadn’t been saying.
The problem, of course, wasn’t so much that Sinn Féin looked shifty – the voters will have factored that into the purchase price. It was the cowardliness of it that was most unnerving.
For if Sinn Féin could not even stand over the relatively mild concept where mandarins who fail should be sacked, then clearly there wasn’t much of a revolution on the way with this lot.
The Night and Day conversion to ‘confusion’ might have occurred at a humble music tent in Roscommon but, rather like those who opened the tomb of Tutankhamun, Sinn Féin have never known a day’s luck since their festival adventure.
PRIOR to then, the Sinn Féin cavalry had been prancing around the very gates of Government Buildings. All that was needed was some infantry to turn up after the mere formality of an election and the worst that could happen is that a few junior ministries would have to be ceded to their Labour Party-sized Fianna Fáil junior partners.
Such was the level of certainty in the party, the suits – and in some cases the new, appropriate cars – had been purchased.
Since then, Sinn Féin has spent most of its time on the political snake rather than the upwardly mobile ladder.
It is probably impossible to return the suits, but the necessity of returning the car and downsizing to something more modest is becoming increasingly likely.
The party finds itself back in the trenches with a strange coalition of Fine Gael and semi-politically literate Independents breathing down their necks.
The polls are increasingly grim especially in the high-profile EU Parliament battles.
The party may, just about, seize back its yearned-for seat in the capital, but in MidlandsNorth-West a visibly flatfooted team of Michelle Gildernew (8%) and Chris MacManus (6%) are clearly struggling. Even in the South, with the recent Irish Times poll showing Kathleen Funchion at 11% and Paul Gavan polling at 6%, the path to a seat is suddenly uncertain.
It will be interesting to see how the party mood will be, should Sinn Féin fail to hook all its European fish – especially if Michelle O’Neill has a triumphant Northern election. Some might consider that the party has the wrong All-Ireland boss.
And should infighting begin in a tired and emotional party, all things – up to an early election – are possible.
One of the ironies of it all is that it is, understandably, forgotten these days that Leo (remember him?) had a plan for the next election.
This essentially was that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael would adhere together, build a fortress centre, ditch the Greens and return to power with some amicable Good Ol’ Boy Independents. As Sinn Féin flounder in the foothills of the low 20s in the polls, it doesn’t seem like a bad plan now.
And we are, of course, sure that should Fine Gael be returned, and Sinn Fein exorcised, Simon Harris – who was flitting around with an entourage of one, buying craft beers for a thirsty media during that day of ‘confusion’ – will remember it all started in a tent in Roscommon.