Perhaps the most startling result from the 2016 General Election was the country’s two largest political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, between them securing only 50% of the total vote.

Since the formation of the Irish Free State in 1922 this is the lowest tally ever shared between the two top parties in the state. It signifies the biggest rebuff to civil war politics since the United Kingdom conceded self-government to the twenty-six counties.

There is one other election in post-independence Ireland that bears striking similarities to our most recent poll. This occurred almost ninety years ago — in June 1927 — in what was only the third general election in the fledgling state’s history. On that occasion the two major parties took only 53% of the popular vote between them.



It would be logical to think that the pro- and anti-Treaty wings of the independence movement would have been particularly dominant in the years immediately following the formation of the Irish Free State; however, this was not the case. Indeed, the early years of the Irish Free State were characterized by a very open political layout with a number of smaller parties and Independent candidates vying for votes with the two wings of Sinn Féin.

A tradition of little choice



The Irish people traditionally had very little choice when it came to electing their representatives. Indeed, before 1918 very few people were actually afforded the right to vote. Voting was for property-holding males only.

In 1918 Westminster Parliament passed the Representation of the People Act, allowing all men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30 the right to vote. These parameters would continue to widen in the years to come.

Before the onset of World War I, the Irish Parliamentary Party was the dominant political force in what would become the twenty-six counties of the Irish Free State. In most constituencies the Home Rule candidate would be elected unopposed.

World War I of course would prove to be the catalyst for a tremendous amount of change in world politics and Ireland was no different. From one end of the war to the other, for many reasons beyond and including the Easter Rising, the previously dominant Irish Parliamentary Party had been rendered redundant and replaced by the Sinn Féin movement, now under the headship of Éamon de Valera.

The 1918 UK General Election was the first held in eight years and in Ireland Sinn Féin obliterated the Irish Parliamentary Party. John Dillon’s Home Rule movement won only two seats in the twenty-six counties — one in East Donegal where Sinn Féin had agreed not to contest, and one in Wexford, the constituency of late party leader John Redmond. Redmond’s seat was won by his son, Captain William Redmond, who has a role to play in this story later.

Effectively, Irish politics had shifted from one dominant force to another. Again, little choice was afforded to the electorate as most Sinn Féin candidates ran unopposed in 1918.

The beginnings of self-government

The 73 MPs elected under the Sinn Féin banner abstained from Westminster Parliament and set up Dáil Éireann in Dublin, which naturally was not recognized by the British government. The last election in Ireland held under the auspices of Westminster took place in May 1921 and on this occasion there was no polling at all in the twenty-six counties as all Sinn Féin candidates were returned unopposed.

The first election in what was now known as Southern Ireland took place in 1922, by which time Sinn Féin had been divided over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed the previous December. The pro- and anti-Treaty sides still managed to form an electoral pact that sitting TDs would not have their seats contested by the other side. 37 seats were won unopposed but other political interests began to surface during this election campaign.

Despite pro- and anti-Treaty Sinn Féin dominating the election, the Labour Party still managed to win a commendable 17 seats and the Farmers’ Party won 7. Both of these parties were contesting their first ever general election.

The Civil War followed and ended before the next general election was called in 1923. This was the first time in Irish electoral history that voters were presented with a myriad of choices on the ballot paper. We take this level of choice for granted nowadays but this was a new development at the time.

With voting rights being extended, there was more choice for more people than ever before and the Irish public made it known that their interests and worries did not just boil down to whether they were pro- or anti-Treaty.

Though votes for Cumann na nGaedheal (the name adopted by pro-Treaty Sinn Féin, later to become Fine Gael) and Republican Sinn Féin accounted for two-thirds of the total vote, the Farmers’ Party and the Labour Party landed 15 seats and 14 seats respectively. There were two seats each for candidates running under the Businessman’s Party banner (a grouping of Unionist businessmen) and the Cork Progressive Association. 13 Independents also secured election.

In this election Cumann na nGaedheal cemented their position as the most popular party in the country. Republican Sinn Féin, led by de Valera, was the country’s second most popular party but they were abstaining from parliament as they refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King.

The next four years was a period of relative stability. The Civil War was over and the Irish Free State was settling into a parliamentary democracy. However, the Cumann na nGaedheal government led by W.T. Cosgrave proved to be an unpopular one — not necessarily because they failed to land any major blows on the North question, but because they were seen to be doing little in the way of stimulating the economy and tackling social problems such as the housing crisis in Dublin.

By the time the next general election was called in June 1927, the political layout had become much more open. Anti-Treaty republicans had divided over their future political strategy, leading de Valera to form his own party in 1926 — Fianna Fáil. Most anti-Treatyites followed Dev in his new venture, with the rest carrying on under the old Sinn Féin banner.

On the pro-Treaty side, a minor split within Cumann na nGaedheal over the findings of the Boundary Commission led to the formation of a splinter group called Clann Éireann.

Also in 1926, a new party formed on the remnants of the old Home Rule movement was established by Captain William Redmond, son of John. It was christened the National League and it hoped to feed off the substantial amount of goodwill felt towards the Home Rule movement.

All of this resulted in one of the most open elections in Irish electoral history. In total, 377 candidates fought for 153 seats. It was in stark contrast to the decades and decades before in which constituencies largely went uncontested in elections.

Similar to the 2016 General Election, the two main parties — Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil — ended up sharing only 53% of the total vote between them. It was clear that the pro- or anti-Treaty debate and Civil War politics was of much less importance to the people of Ireland than it was to the two main parties.

Also similar to 2016, the outgoing government suffered heavy losses, losing thirteen seats and their majority in the Dáil. Fianna Fáil in its first election won 44 seats, only three seats less than Cumann na nGaedheal. Labour won 22 seats, the Farmers’ Party 11, the newly formed National League took a commendable 8 seats, while the remnants of Sinn Féin took 5. Clann Éireann returned no candidates while 16 Independents were successfully elected.

This resulted in a very splintered Dáil. Unlike the situation currently where Fine Gael are struggling to form a government, the absence of Fianna Fáil from the house made it fairly simple for Cumann na nGaedheal to continue in government with the support of the Farmers’ Party. Labour’s 22 strong party took their place as chief opposition in the Dáil.

This fractured sitting of the Dáil would last only 98 days and this three month period would prove pivotal in the formation and the entrenchment of the Irish political structure for the remainder of the twentieth century.

A blow upon the nation

The Fifth Dáil convened on 23 June 1927 and was only weeks old when a political assassination rocked the infant state.

On 10 July, Kevin O’Higgins — Vice-President of the Executive Council (Tánaiste in today’s terminology) — was shot dead on his way to Mass by independently acting republicans. The killing met with condemnation from all sides of the political spectrum. W. T. Cosgrave told the assembled Dáil two days after the shooting that a blow had fallen ‘upon this Assembly and through it upon the nation’.

After ten days of emotional strain the Dáil reconvened, at which point Cosgrave and his government introduced three bills designed to drive the anti-state menace out of Irish society whilst driving the abstaining republicans into the Dáil.

A public safety bill was introduced which would give the government wide-ranging powers to deal with secret paramilitary activity. The act provided for the establishment of military courts, the censorship of publications and the implementation of the death penalty for crimes including the possession of firearms. Two bills were also introduced which would end the policy of abstention. Under the proposed legislation, taking the oath of allegiance would become a pre-requisite in running for office and the Constitution was to be amended so abstaining TDs could no longer delay the passage of bills though the house.

Although the first of these bills was drafted with a view to ending covert anti-state activities, the latter two were clearly directed towards the abstaining republican parties, the largest of which was Fianna Fáil. Historian Arthur Mitchell notes that Cosgrave’s government was clearly setting out ‘to force the anti-treatyites either into the Dáil or out of public life’.

These moves drew the ire of main opposition parties Labour and the National League. While the leaders of both parties lamented the death of O’Higgins they saw these new laws as draconian, with Captain Redmond arguing that Fianna Fáil had a constitutional right to abstain from parliament. However, Cumann na nGaedheal held the majority in the house and sought to rush through the legislation.

Fianna Fáil’s policy of abstention was coming under increasing threat and many party followers began to believe they would be more effective as a sitting party within Dáil Éireann. This was increasingly becoming de Valera’s own viewpoint.

From the beginning of August, talks were held between Labour and Fianna Fáil spokesmen about a working arrangement whereby the latter would enter the Dáil and support a prospective Labour government provided they set about abolishing the oath. With the passage of the Electoral and Constitutional Amendment Acts seemingly inevitable, Fianna Fáil was forced to take a decision in the interests of self-preservation. On Friday 12 August, Fianna Fáil TDs took up their seats in the Free State parliament, declaring the oath of allegiance ‘an empty formula’.

Labour Party leader Thomas Johnson wasted no time in tabling a motion of no confidence in the government which was consented to by W.T. Cosgrave and was scheduled to take place the following Tuesday. For the motion of no confidence to pass, the Labour-Fianna Fáil alliance would require the support of the National League’s small parliamentary group. Captain Redmond’s party now effectively held the balance of power and the fate of the Cosgrave administration in its hands, much like the Home Rule Party had so often held the balance of power at Westminster in previous decades.

It was proposed that this unlikely coalition would benefit all three parties. It would achieve Fianna Fáil’s goal of ousting the Cumann na nGaedheal government and it would allow Labour and the National League time in government and the opportunity to quash Cosgrave’s heavy-handed public safety measures.

The big question mark was whether the National League would support the no confidence motion. They had won eight seats in the June election but already one member had defected and was now seen to be a government man. The seven TDs left in their parliamentary group would still be enough, however, to tip the balance of power against the government.

The main sticking point for the National League was whether they should be associating with anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil. The Home Rule movement had prided itself on being a constitutional movement and thus associating with a party which refused to recognise the validity of the Constitution was viewed as being against the party’s very principles.

Donal Joseph O’Sullivan, a senator, commented at the time that the coalition of Fianna Fáil and Labour was understandable, but could not fathom ‘how men who still called themselves Republicans were prepared to keep Captain Redmond in office, or how Captain Redmond could be prepared to accept office from them’. Captain Redmond was a British Army veteran, having taken up his father’s call for all nationalists to join the war effort in 1914. As such, it was hard to see how he and de Valera could end up working together politically.

Of course, politicians will always find a way to defend their actions if it helps achieve their own self-interests and so Redmond stated he would support the motion of no confidence if it was guaranteed that Fianna Fáil would not interfere with a Labour and National League coalition government.

When the day of the vote arrived, the National League had seemingly made up their minds and were prepared to help Labour and Fianna Fáil oust the incumbent government. Labour leader Thomas Johnson had even formulated a proposed cabinet which would reward the National League with two ministerial posts.

The Irish Times predicted with confidence that the motion would pass. In fact, its prediction had even accounted for the possible defection of one National League TD since it was believed that at least three Independents would support the motion. Excluding the Ceann Comhairle, abstaining Sinn Féin TDs, two seats vacant through bereavements, and the absence of Labour TD Thomas O’Connell who was attending a conference in Canada, there were 143 deputies in the Dáil on Tuesday, 16 August 1927.

The combined forces of Fianna Fáil, Labour and the National League numbered exactly 72, a majority of one, so when Redmond rose to speak in support of the motion it appeared the government was on the way out. In fact, one newspaper reported that the whole debate was conducted by both sides ‘on the assumption that the motion would be carried’.

High Jinks in the Dáil

Despite speculation the session could last several days, the actual debate ‘was a subdued five hours’ with Thomas Johnson giving ‘an unconvincing performance’ for a man proposing to lead the country. Johnson failed to spell out the alternative to Cumann na nGaedheal, instead emphasising that this vote was, first and foremost, about putting out the Cosgrave government.

Redmond was more forthcoming and assured the Dáil there was no need to fear a coalition being formed. He argued that the vote was ‘either for a sterile perpetuation of an embittered feud, or alternatively for the adoption of wholesome and beneficent processes of growth in the inner political life of our country’. In a nutshell, he argued the state would be better run by people who had no involvement in the Civil War.



The speeches of Johnson and Redmond, as well as the silence of the Fianna Fáil deputies, bar a short anti-government statement in Irish by Sean T. O’Kelly, proved insufficient to convince any wavering Independents to their side. Despite the prediction of the Irish Times, all the Independent deputies voted to save the government. Still, with the full power of Fianna Fáil, Labour and the National League, the motion was due to pass, and indeed it was believed that it had until Cumann na nGaedheal called for a division.

It was then noticed that one member of the National League, John Jinks, who had been seated behind the party leader ‘a few minutes before the division bell rang’, was absent from the chamber. Jinks’s absence resulted in a tied vote, 71-71. The Ceann Comhairle Michael Hayes cast his deciding vote in favour of the present government which, remarkably, held on.

The absence of Jinks from the Dáil chamber gave rise to a plethora of colourful stories. Conflicting theories emerged claiming that Jinks had taken suddenly ill, had been abducted by ex-servicemen or ‘had been doped’. There was also a tale that Jinks’s absence had been engineered by Major Bryan Cooper, an Independent TD of Unionist background, and the editor of the Irish Times Robert Smyllie, who took the Sligo man to a pub where he was ‘plied with drink till he was incapable of attending the vital Dáil session’. In reality, it is most likely that Jinks had taken the decision himself after consulting the will of his constituents.

Jinks expressed to an Irish Times reporter his reservations ‘that the party was contemplating an alliance with Mr. de Valera’, adding that ‘I did not wish to create a split by voting against my party or by announcing my decision in advance. I just thought the best thing to do was to leave the House before the division, and go back to my hotel’. Jinks was swiftly removed from the National League party with Redmond bluntly stating that he was ‘one whom in no case our party would care to retain as a colleague’.

The failure of the no confidence motion was disastrous news for the country’s minor political parties. After government successes in two Dublin by-elections, W. T. Cosgrave dissolved the Fifth Dáil in late August after only 98 days and called a fresh general election. The smaller parties in the state simply did not have the resources to fight a second general election in three months.

As a result, the election held in September was of a vastly different character to the election held three months previously. The number of candidates fell from 377 in June to 261 in September, with Sinn Féin and Clann Éireann pulling out of the race completely.

As the minor parties struggled to mount meaningful campaigns, Fianna Fáil and Cumann na nGaedheal engaged in one of the most hotly-contested battles in Irish political history. The importance of the contest was not lost on either side with one contemporary reporting that the Irish people had never been ‘so continuously bombarded with oral and written propaganda’. Fianna Fáil suffered no backlash from the no-confidence debacle and in fact built upon its existing support, winning 57 seats. Cumann na nGaedheal remained the biggest party in the state, returning 61 TDs.



However, Labour and the National League suffered a major backlash from the voting public. Labour fell from 22 seats to 13, and the National League saw its representation fall from 8 seats to 2. It must also be noted that the Farmers’ Party, which had supported the government, saw its representation fall from 11 seats to 6. No matter what side of the fence they sat on, all the minor parties suffered as Irish politics became increasingly polarised.

Irish political commentator Michael Gallagher writes that after the September election ‘the future lines of the party system became much more rigidly defined, as the political picture, hitherto highly fluid, settled down into a pattern whose outlines were very clear’. Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil, who between them shared only 53% of the popular vote in June, accounted for 74% three months later. The trends set in motion in September 1927 would continue throughout the twentieth century as the early influence of smaller parties began to wane.

It would be ninety years before the state’s two largest parties would suffer anything near the low collective polling tally they achieved in June 1927.

Comparing 1927 to 2016

Irish politics became highly polarised towards the end of the 1920s. Fianna Fáil and Labour were loosely allied on one side while all the conservative, right-wing interests in Irish politics became subsumed into W. T. Cosgrave’s party, including residual support for the old Home Rule movement.

The National League is a good example of the fluidity in Irish politics in the early years of the Irish Free State. With a threadbare policy and little organisation the party still managed to poll almost 84,000 first preferences votes in June 1927. When this is added to the success of other minor parties in the Free State’s infant years, it plainly demonstrates that the electorate had not yet fully approved of the pro- or anti-Treaty descendants of revolutionary Sinn Féin.

When we compare June 1927 to February 2016, there are a couple of things that must be taken into consideration. Firstly, as Fianna Fáil were abstaining from the Dáil it made it much easier for Cumann na nGaedheal to form a government. That is not a luxury afforded to Enda Kenny at this moment in time. Secondly, Cosgrave’s government had the backing of a sizeable minority grouping in the Farmers’ Party. Again, Mr Kenny does not have such a sizable and willing minor party in his grasp.

However, there are many similarities between the situation then and now — the lack of certainty being the main one. Even if Fine Gael can form a government in the coming days and weeks it will be a government built on incredibly weak foundations, always under threat that Fianna Fáil or Independents will suddenly pull their support.

When Fianna Fáil entered the Dáil in August 1927, Cumann na nGaedheal were immediately put in a position of considerable weakness as their comfortable majority in the House was undermined. Such was the weakness of their position that it was actually a surprise when Cosgrave’s government survived the controversial motion of no confidence.

Had John Jinks voted with his party as he should have, had Labour TD Thomas O’Connell not been in Canada at the time, had any one of the 16 Independents in the house voted against Cosgrave, then the political situation could have been very different indeed.

It is difficult to predict just how successful a Labour-National League coalition would have been. Redmond had stated that the duty of the new government would be ‘a watching brief’, with both parties agreeing that no ‘highly contentious and disturbing policies’ would be pushed during the term of government.

Labour Historian Niamh Puirséil believes that the potential coalition government would ‘have proved short lived and ineffectual’ and would effectively have been an ‘unstable lame-duck administration’. This was certainly the feeling among contemporary commentators, who argued that the coalition would have been completely dependent on Fianna Fáil support.

But had the alternative government proved stable, even in the short-term, it might have answered some of the objections from the press and the electorate. Arthur Mitchell writes, from the Labour standpoint, that a ‘successful, if brief, term in office would have given the party and its leaders public attention and approval’. A stable period in government of six months or more would certainly have allowed both parties some breathing space to consolidate their electoral position and, in the case of the National League, to address considerable financial issues.

Whether this alternative government would have been successful or not is obviously something we will never know. After surviving the no confidence motion Cosgrave seized the opportunity to strengthen his position by going back to the polls, only three months after the previous election.

How long it will be before we have to go back to the polls remains to be seen. But if the lessons of 1927 are to be heeded, it may not be very long at all.