Una Mullally: Rise of Sinn Féin is about a generation moving beyond political establishment

How can we understand the political change in Ireland this year? Probably by listening more to those who desire it.

The political upheaval that began in response to the great recession will continue in Ireland, even though the pandemic very obviously overshadowed the manoeuvring of political parties in 2020. Yet in a year when the political establishment and wide swathes of the media scrambled to get to grips with Sinn Féin’s seismic election result, a broader perspective is also needed.

The terrible start to the stop-gap Government currently filling the space between the 2020 general election and the next stop on this broader cycle of change allowed media to do what it does best; chase the story.

And there were so many stories. The scandals, gaffes, crises and cock-ups that characterise the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Green Party coalition put to bed the myth of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil’s opinion of themselves – that they are the adults in the room.

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Even Fine Gael doesn’t believe that of Fianna Fáil. Part of their awful election campaign involved attacking Fianna Fáil for recklessness and painting their now partners in Government as cartoonish fools. All of that makes for great soap opera, and there will be plenty of column inches filled too with Sinn Féin anthropology, and the almost David Attenborough-esque commentary on the seemingly mythical future of a left-wing coalition government.

But in a year in Irish politics that was all about the party-political power balance being upset, the funny thing is, the rise of Sinn Féin isn’t actually about Sinn Féin. The political vacuum that had already opened up is one Sinn Féin found themselves filling, rather than sought to fill. What happens next is about a change much bigger than any party, and it’s about the political consciousness evolving. The result Sinn Féin leveraged for many reasons, including their brand, is part of that wheel turning.

It’s about a generation that emerged from and into the great recession, who lost a decade, who reacted to the crisis by instigating seismic social change, who left, who came home, who stayed in touch, who are politicised, educated, who believe and can see that Ireland can be shaped through ambitious vision and grassroots action, who are culturally engaged, who can’t afford their rent never mind owning a home, and who have essentially moved beyond the political establishment.

It’s about a generation whose average member could probably run rings around the average politician. It’s about a political establishment whose inability to reflect what Ireland looks like isn’t just down to lack of diversity of identity or background, but calibre. It’s about a new generation with higher standards.

It has been difficult for media to connect with a socially distanced and working-from-home population this year, which means we are bereft of the broader social analysis that should have occurred in the aftermath of the election.

Instead, all we got was a lot of canned and repetitive thinking and talking, which is not properly interrogating the trajectory of this country and its people. The most important figure this year, in my opinion, is 47.3 per cent. That’s the level of youth unemployment in November. Young people will be the worst affected by this pandemic, young women especially. So, what do you think is going to happen with that?

Social media

One of the curiosities of the pandemic is how, as everyone in society was atomised and kept apart, journalists relied on Twitter discourse to judge the mood of the nation. Twitter is often incorrectly utilised as an informal market research group that is positioned as representative of society. It is not. Opinion formed online is not always authentic, and is disproportionately shaped by polarised and polarising points of view.

Most people possess complex and often contradictory opinions that traverse multiple political spectrums. Only fundamentalists and fans root their points of view in exact points on a graph that positions everything outside of that as “wrong”, or “the opposition”, or even “the enemy”. Practically, such thinking is irrational and utterly detached from the reality of the human experience, and intellectually, it is both borrowed and blind.

Solely allowing social media to sketch the outline of public discourse reflects society through funhouse mirrors. It’s not real. It also means that traditional media internalises and mimics the internet, leaning into scandal cycles, trivialities, personalities, hot takes and soundbites. We need to go deeper.

We know that when the pandemic plunged us into an existential crisis and forced us to pause, many people sat with themselves, thought about their lives, what they want, and what matters. Many people think this sentiment, which permeated Lockdown 1.0, has faded. But it happened and the resonance will continue. The thing about lessons is that you have to keep learning and relearning them.

The pandemic has taught us how important our personal behaviour is, that choices matter, that action has an impact, that empathy, solidarity, social cohesion and consideration are what get us through. But that’s not just about navigating an infectious virus.

These are the ongoing lessons we need to continue to learn, and they are ones Ireland has been in training for and with, which is all part of what this “political” change really is – it’s personal.