Sinn Fein members discuss election rout

Andrew Johnson

Prior to the recent Dail election, the one constant prediction had been of very large gains for Sinn Fein. In the event, the party made a modest gain in its vote share, from 6.5% to 6.9%, a credible gain in absolute votes from 120,000 to 140,000, but failed to win any new seats and suffered the high-profile loss of Sean Crowe in Dublin South-West.

Prior to the recent Dail election, the one constant prediction had been of very large gains for Sinn Fein. In the event, the party made a modest gain in its vote share, from 6.5% to 6.9%, a credible gain in absolute votes from 120,000 to 140,000, but failed to win any new seats and suffered the high-profile loss of Sean Crowe in Dublin South-West. From a perspective where SF had scored spectacular gains in 2004, winning 8% in the local elections and 11% in the European contest, the party had been widely expected to double its seats and votes, so a performance that was not bad in absolute terms looked like a stunning defeat. This is especially so since Sinn Fein members had had as high expectations as anybody, and even Gerry Adams has been saying, with the benefit of hindsight, that they were overconfident.

A closer analysis of the results shows that, of the forty constituencies contested, the SF share of the vote rose in 23 and fell in 17. Five of the rises and six of the falls are of less than 1%, and so can be disregarded for statistical purposes, as can the five notional “rises” in constituencies SF didn’t contest last time. A further complication in directly comparing previous results is that of boundary changes in two of SF’s stronger areas, Meath and Sligo-Leitrim, as well as several Dublin constituencies. At first glance, SF’s performance therefore looks like a confused picture, with local factors playing a strong role.

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