Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil (‘soldiers of Ireland’), a political party formally inaugurated on 16 May 1926. Tensions within the anti‐treaty Sinn Féin party, led by Eamon de Valera, over the issue of abstention from the Dáil and the long‐term future of the party, came to a head at that party's national convention (ardfheis) in March 1926. A proposal from the party leader that, in the event of the removal of the constitutional requirement that Dáil deputies take an oath of allegiance, it would become ‘a question not of principle but of policy’ whether Sinn Féin deputies would take their seats, was rejected by the convention, precipitating the withdrawal of de Valera and his supporters.

Though it failed initially to attract the support of a majority of Sinn Féin's Dáil deputies, the general election of June 1927 saw the new party eclipse Sinn Féin (winning 26.1 per cent of votes and 44 seats, to the latter's 3.6 per cent and 5 seats). Under threat of marginalization by the Electoral Amendment Act, Fianna Fáil took its seats in the Dáil in August 1927. A snap general election in September 1927 reinforced its position (with 35.2 per cent of the vote it won 57 seats). The party's electoral record since then has been impressive. In 1932 (44.5 per cent of votes, 72 seats) it established the position that it was to retain subsequently: easily the largest party in the state, its support normally lying between 40 and 50 per cent. Other unequalled records were broken in 1933, when it became the first party ever to win an overall parliamentary majority (49.6 per cent of votes, 77 seats), and in 1938, when it became the first party to win an overall majority of those voting (51.9 per cent).

The shock of Fianna Fáil's ousting of Cumann na nGaedheal in 1932 to form its first government was followed by a consolidation of its perception of itself as the ‘natural’ party of government: it remained in office for a period of sixteen years. Between 1948 and 1957 it alternated with an anti‐Fianna Fáil coalition (see interparty government), but in 1957 it began a second sixteen‐year period in office. The period from 1973 to 1989 once again saw Fianna Fáil alternating in office with a coalition, but in the latter year the party breached its traditional policy of refusing to consider coalition by entering into an alliance with the Progressive Democrats (and in 1992–4 with the Labour Party).

Fianna Fáil's policy position was articulated in 1926 in its constitution, which defined seven basic aims. The first two of these, ‘to secure the unity and independence of Ireland as a republic’ and ‘to restore the Irish language as the spoken language of the people’, for long remained central to the party's self‐image, however remote the prospects of their attainment. On others, the party reversed its position in practice while retaining the ideal in theory. For example, its third and seventh aims (‘to make the resources and wealth of Ireland subservient to the needs and welfare of all the people of Ireland’ and ‘to carry out the democratic programme of the First Dáil’) imply a level of socio‐economic intervention that would be more characteristic of a party of the left than of the right of centre party that Fianna Fáil was to become. By the 1950s the party's position on its three remaining aims (to try to make Ireland economically self‐sufficient, to establish as many families as practicable on the land, and to promote the ruralization of industries) had been reversed in practice, though the formal aims themselves remained sacrosanct until the 1990s.

Notwithstanding his own stature and his longevity as party leader (1926–59), Eamon de Valera by no means impeded the evolution of party policy in directions not envisaged in 1926. This was obvious not only in the lack of urgency attached to pursuit of the aims of ending partition and restoring the Irish language, but in the evolution of industrial policy in a direction sharply at variance with the other party aims. Much of the momentum behind this may be attributed to Sean Lemass, who as second party leader (1959–66) not only continued policies of economic rapprochement with Great Britain but also sought to improve relations with the government of Northern Ireland, giving de facto recognition to partition. The heritage of the tension between this reorientation of the party and the upsurge of nationalism associated with developing civil unrest in Northern Ireland was managed by the next leader, Jack Lynch (1966–79), who strove to maintain party unity behind a policy of moderation on Northern Ireland, at the cost of antagonizing more nationalist elements (see arms crisis). It was this tension that was partly responsible for the succession of the next leader, Charles Haughey (1979–90), though factional divisions and personal factors also had a major impact, as they did in the cases also of later leaders Albert Reynolds (1990–4) and Bertie Ahern (since 1994).

Bibliography

Hannon, Philip, and Gallagher, Jackie (eds.), Taking the Long View: Seventy Years of Fianna Fáil (1996)

John Coakley