All is changed and changed utterly: SF has transformed face of Irish politics

WHAT a difference a few days can make. The last weekend has seen a sea-change in Irish politics the like of which hasn’t been seen in generations. Long the pariahs of politics, Sinn Féin now find themselves with the keys to the kingdom and hold the balance of power in the Dáil. The old order has been overturned and the country has woken to a new order following Mary Lou McDonald and her party’s stunning General Election victory.

The sheer scale of Sinn Féin’s triumph at the polls is astonishing and it has taken everyone – including Sinn Féin – by surprise. The Sinn Féin tsunami makes Labour’s famed ‘Spring Tide’ of 1992 look like a minor flood and it will be some time before political analysts can work out exactly what happened and why.

The one thing we do know is that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil completely underestimated Sinn Féin and misread public mood.

The public was clearly crying out for change and that anti establishment mood was expressed in an electoral primal scream on Saturday. Four years later Ireland looks to have had its own ‘ Trump/Brexit’ moment and, as was the case in the UK and the US, nothing will be the same again.

In the wake of Trump’s election and the Brexit vote, commentators struggled to explain why voters rejected the status quo. Why, many wondered, with everything going so well would voters want change.

The answer is simple, for many people things aren’t going well at all. We are constantly sold the dream of sipping chai lattes and eating avocado breakfasts in salubrious, multi-million Euro homes and a shopping trips to New York.

The Tiger was back we’ve been told but for many the reality is very different from the peddled dream.

In recent years the average person has found themselves asking why they are working every hour God sends for a US multinational just to pay the rent on a bedsit the size of a doghouse?

Why they never see their family because they spend every spare minute commuting to a job they hate and that pays a pittance?

Or why their ailing grandmother spent the last 72 hours on a hospital trolley? Why our streets and hotels are filled with homeless people and families? Why governments seem happy to waste billions of taxpayers money while they can barely afford dinner?

Or why, in the midst of a supposed great recovery, their friends and loved ones are still living on the other side of the world and may never come home. Who wouldn’t want change?

That Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael couldn’t grasp this reveals a startling disconnect with the day to day lives of the average voter.

Complacency in the establishment parties opened the door for Mary Lou McDonald and Sinn Féin and they have responded by kicking in the doors down altogether.

Back in 1981 Danny Morrison told the Sinn Féin ard fheis that the party could take power with an armalite in one hand, a ballot paper in the other. On Saturday they proved they no longer need the armalite at all. When used correctly, public anger can be just as lethal to a government’s health.

Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar now both face a difficult decision. The people have spoke and they must listen.