The Irish government today is a coalition of the Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrat parties. The main opposition consists of the Fine Gael party, and the Labour party also has a sizable block of deputies. Also with deputies are the Green Party, Sinn Fein and the Socialist Party. So who are all these parties, and what distinguishes them? To answer these questions, one must go back in history to at least 1921.
It has been said many times that Irish politics is still stuck in the Civil War of the early nineteen-twenties, and with good reason. The two main parties in the Republic, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, have evolved out of the two opposing sides in that Civil War. In most other nations both would be characterized as right-of-center parties, and there is little to distinguish them on most issues. Other parties have vowed to break this political mold, but have met with little success.
The Civil War really began when the War for Independence was concluded in January 1922. The Irish Dail, or Parliament, narrowly approved a treaty signed by Michael Collins, leader of the IRA. This treaty did not deliver an independent Irish Republic, but rather a Free State that still owed its allegiance to the British monarchy. In addition, it cut off six northeastern counties of the nation, creating the province of Northern Ireland that still today remains fully part of the UK.
Although a majority of TDs (members of parliament) approved the treaty, a majority of IRA members and probably of the Irish people themselves opposed it. Those who supported the treaty formed the political party Cumann na nGaedheal and the Free State army. Those who opposed it retained the name of the IRA and the political party Sinn Fein. With the assistance of the British, the pro-treaty forces were victorious and the Civil War ended in 1923.
Cumann na nGaedheal therefore formed the first elected Irish government later that year, with the Labour Party as the opposition. The Labour Party was founded by James Connolly, a Marxist, in 1912. Connolly was later executed by the British for leading the 1916 Irish uprising, but in spite of this the Labour Party did not take a position on the national question. Sinn Fein, which still opposed the treaty, refused to take its seats in the Dail as making an oath of allegiance to the British crown was a requirement of doing so.
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