90 years of democracy

The Ireland that emerged in 1919 owed more to the democratic tradition than to the cult of blood sacrifice personified by the 1916 leaders. That commitment to democracy still influences every facet of Irish political life

STEPHEN COLLINS

IRELAND IS one of the oldest continuous democracies in the world. This is owed largely to the mechanism of the first Dáil, a democratically elected body answerable to the Irish electorate. While violence also played a decisive part in the nature and timing of Irish independence, the Dáil was crucial in establishing the democratic legitimacy of the emerging new State.

One paradox about the sweeping Sinn Féin victory in the 1918 general election in what is now the Republic is that the heirs of 1916 enthusiastically adopted the political tactics of their Irish Party opponents in order to crush them.

A greater paradox is that the State that ultimately emerged owed more to the democratic tradition of O’Connell, Parnell and Redmond than to the cult of blood sacrifice and mystical nationalism personified by 1916 leaders like Pearse and McDonagh.

One often ignored facet of the 1918 election is that while Sinn Féin won 73 seats and the Irish Party just six, Unionists won 26, one of them in Dublin. It demonstrated the loyalty of a significant minority of those living on the island of Ireland to the British crown.

Just as Sinn Féin’s triumph paved the way to independence for the 26 counties, the strength of unionism, as expressed in the ballot box, led to the creation of Northern Ireland.

One reason for Sinn Féin’s comprehensive victory in 1918 was that its leaders consciously presented themselves as being above the petty squabbles of day-to-day politics. “Sinn Féin stands less for a political party than for the nation,” said its election manifesto.

A version of this line had proved effective in earlier decades for the Irish Party, which always sought to present opponents as representing “factionalism” in contrast to its own commitment to the national cause. In later decades Fianna Fáil would similarly present itself as a “national movement” above the “sectional interests” represented by other parties. From the beginning, though, there were fault lines in Sinn Féin that would inevitably lead to fracture. The original party founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905 was committed to the key element of the programme of 1918 – the withdrawal from Westminster of the elected Irish MPs and the establishment of a parliament based in Ireland – but the process was envisaged as being a peaceful one.

After 1916, Griffith’s Sinn Féin was effectively taken over by more radical nationalists who regarded violent action as a legitimate tactic. The goal of an independent Ireland linked to the British crown was replaced by that of a republic and de Valera replaced Griffith as president of the party to emphasise the change.

Griffith, though, stayed on as a key figure and took over as acting president of the Dáil when de Valera went to the United States for more than a year. Differing views about the ultimate objective of the Dáil, varying attitudes to the use of violence and the increasingly powerful role of the Irish Republican Army – many of whose members had contempt for most elected TDs – were bound to lead to an eventual split.

The surprising thing about the split, when it happened over the Treaty, was that the leading figures did not divide in the way many had expected. It was no surprise Griffith was on the more moderate pro-Treaty side but it came as a shock to many that Michael Collins, the most famous “gunman” of the movement, was on the same side.

It was almost equally unexpected that the leading political figure of the movement, Eamon de Valera, ended up on the anti-Treaty side with the more extreme elements of the IRA who instinctively distrusted all politicians.

The personnel on each side dictated not only the outcome of the Civil War, but the shape of Irish politics for the following 90 years. The ruthlessness of Collins, followed after his death by the calm political pragmatism and toughness of WT Cosgrave, led to a comprehensive military and political victory for the pro-Treaty side in 1922/1923 and the creation of the democratic institutions that have survived to this day.

However, de Valera’s adherence to the anti-Treaty gave it a long-term political future. Ultimately, through the establishment of Fianna Fáil, de Valera, the shrewdest of them all, became the dominant political figure of 20th-century Ireland. By bringing many of the more radical “slightly constitutional” elements of the anti-Treaty side with him, and channelling their energies into democratic politics, de Valera actually made the Treaty settlement permanent, even though he modified the terms, particularly relating to the crown.

From its first election victory in 1932, Fianna Fáil has dominated Irish politics in a way that has few parallels. The party has been in power for more than 60 of the years since then, with much of its appeal due to its self-proclaimed status as a “national movement”.

Fine Gael, the heirs of the pro-Treaty side, never recaptured the dominant position acquired in the 1920s and have remained the second-largest party since 1932. Given Fine Gael’s relative lack of success, its survival as a major force is almost as remarkable as that of Fianna Fáil.

Labour, having stayed out of the 1918 election, never made the impact of similar social democratic parties in other countries, although it carved out a distinctive niche and held on to it through thick and thin.

In 1990 when Mary Robinson was elected the first, and so far only, non-Fianna Fáil president, she maintained that political allegiances arising from the “tattered flags of the Civil War” had finally been put to rest.

Almost 20 years later they are still flying high, although – thankfully – the animosities that spawned them have long been forgotten.

Stephen Collins is Political Editor of The Irish Times