Ireland’s Nationalist Party Breaks Through
The country’s surprising election results are a rejection of the status quo.
Mainstream parties falter, only for a new, populist force to fill the vacuum: It’s a familiar tale that has been recounted several times in recent years—in Britain with Brexit, in the United States with the election of Donald Trump, and in scores of other countries around the world.
Ireland, however, has been conspicuously absent from this global populist wave. Unlike many of its European counterparts, whose political establishments have suffered at the expense of populist parties, Ireland has mostly continued to be dominated by two centrist parties that have alternated being in power for the better part of a century.
