Fintan O’Toole: Election results show angry energy of protest is exhausted

So, rumours of the return of normal Irish politics turn out to have been greatly exaggerated. The great crash of 2008 shattered the familiar template of Irish elections. What was rather complacently called the "2½ party system" with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael between them dominating every government in the history of the State, and Labour making up the numbers when required, was badly disrupted. But in a lot of recent polls it had seemed that it was gradually reasserting itself, albeit with Sinn Féin occupying Labour's traditional space. Perhaps, as the economy settled down and the tide of anger receded, the familiar landscape was re-emerging? Not really – after the weekend, it looks more likely that those floodwaters have fundamentally altered the lie of the land.

Two big things are obvious in the local and European elections. One is that the old establishment remains a rather diminished force. But the other is that the opposition to it is, if anything, even more incoherent than it was before. Irish politics is now a game of two halves in which one half is a lacklustre old order and the other half is an incoherent and shifting challenge to it. On the one side, there is an ancient regime that looks weak. On the other side, the would-be revolutionaries are all over the place.

Irish politics is a game of two halves in which one half is a lacklustre old order and the other is an incoherent and shifting challenge to it

Historically, Irish politics was all about the duopoly we might call Fianna Gael. Its twin peaks loomed over everything – all other parties were mere foothills. Even in 2007, the last general election before the crash, it got almost 70 per cent of the vote. The banking crisis and the consequent imposition of austerity rocked this certainty. In the general elections of 2011 and 2016, the electorate kicked, by turns, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. In the process, the Fianna Gael behemoth shrank to half the vote. The 50/50 split emerged. There were two tribes – the continuity tribe and the change tribe. Effectively, the continuity tribe was forced to admit its fundamental unity in the face of this diminished status – hence Fianna Fáil propping up a Fine Gael-led government.

A blip?

The big question though was whether this was a blip, the temporary effect of a decade-long crisis. There were some reasons to think it might be, but these elections suggest otherwise. The crisis may be over but the roughly even split remains: half for Fianna Gael; half for everybody else. The old centre-right machines are still very clearly functioning but they are not going anywhere fast. The reasons are obvious enough – they have been unable to present any convincing answers to the long-term problems in housing, healthcare and social inequality. And while Fianna Fáil has not regained its reputation for economic competence, Fine Gael is losing its lustre as a guardian of the public finances.

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While Fianna Fáil has not regained its reputation for economic competence, Fine Gael is losing its lustre as a guardian of the public finances

But while that half of Irish politics is stuck in the doldrums, the other half is in turbulent waters. Here, one big thing has changed – these elections suggest that the politics of protest have run their course. Much of the angry energy unleashed by the banking crisis and austerity had a somewhat paradoxical character. Its rhetoric was left-wing but its real power lay in opposition to taxation – first to property taxes and then to water charges. Both Sinn Féin and Solidarity/People Before Profit rode the wave of anti-tax protests. But particularly in relation to the water charges, they have become victims of their own success. That tap has been turned off and many working-class voters simply stayed at home on Friday. They may still be angry but their rage is not sufficiently focused to have a real electoral effect.

Appalling performance

On this side of the divide, there is still a Labour-shaped hole. If, in 2011, Labour had maintained its critique of the bank bailout and of lopsided austerity, it would now be by far the dominant oppositional force in Irish politics and the core of an alternative government. Instead, it chose to enforce those very policies and left the field to Sinn Féin, and the far-left. That increasingly looks as fateful a decision as Labour’s decision in 1918 to leave the field to the old Sinn Féin. It has not been forgiven and its appalling performance even in its old Dublin strongholds suggests that pardon will be a long time coming.

That, of course, should be a lesson for the Greens. They themselves have now been forgiven the sins of 2007 when they allowed themselves to become mere satellites trapped in the orbit of what John Gormley called Planet Bertie. The reprieve is joyful and, especially in the context of Ireland's dreadful response to the climate crisis, it is very timely. But it has taken 10 years for the statute of limitations on past failures to finally come into force for the Greens. They cannot afford to blow this second chance and then wait another decade for a place in the ever-hotter sun.

For with the exception of the Greens (and to a smaller extent the Social Democrats), this game of two halves looks like a nil-nil draw. The old order is not being restored. The challengers to its hegemony are no nearer to forming a coherent alternative capable of taking power.