The Irish Republic after the Crisis: Commemorating the Easter Rising in the 2016 Election Campaign

Abstract

The 2016 general election in Ireland was perhaps the most unpredictable in the country’s history. In hindsight it would be called “the election that nobody won” and resulted in a complicated minoritygovernment arrangement.1 The traditional parties Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Labour were confronted with a Sinn Féin rising in the polls, two newly formed parties (Renua and the Social Democrats), radical left-wing groups, and strong support for independent candidates.2 In this altered political landscape both new and established political actors faced the challenge of defining what they could offer to an electorate that looked back to years of austerity in the wake of the financial crisis. They needed to articulate an identity as political actors different from the others to an extent that made them more appealing to voters. This was also the centenary year of the Easter Rising and the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. An election campaign a few months before Easter in such a year was likely to include some acknowledgment of the significance of the anniversary. Yet which political actors would or would not attempt to associate themselves with it and how