Preview

How Did Ireland Have A Half Party System

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1636 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Did Ireland Have A Half Party System
Since the early decades of the state, it was said that Ireland had a ‘two and a half party’ party system. There are two main political parties in Ireland - Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the minor party Labour which is a potential coalition party. The two historically largest political parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael arose from a split that occurred in Irish politics at the time of the 1922–1923 Civil War, at the time of the foundation of the state. Both descended from factions of the original Sinn Féin party: Fine Gael from the faction that supported the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and Fianna Fáil from the anti-Treaty faction. This enduring characteristic of the Irish party system is sometimes pejoratively referred to as "Civil War politics". …show more content…
The search for vote revolved less around old issues of nationalism and the role of the Catholic Church and more around promises of economic and social progress. Lemass wanted to modernise Ireland. He encouraged the growth of industry. His government brought in free secondary education for all children, and Lemass was the first Taoiseach to meet the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1965. The effects of the economic modernisation of on the party system, began when Sean lemass decided to leave fianna fails leadership in the hands of jack lynch at the end of the 1960s. Lynch had to deal with the increasing violence in Northern Ireland as the Troubles broke out. He also wanted to continue Lemass' work and bring Ireland into the European Economic Community, which he did in 1973. Thus starting the whole party system. This produced a crisis of fianna fails collective incentives which would lead to breaking down dominant party system pattern. Lynch stepped down and was replaced by Charles …show more content…
The Irish state also changed Articles 2 and 3 of the constitution to acknowledge both the existence of Northern Ireland and the desire of Irish nationalists for a united Ireland. Even in the wake of the post-Good Friday Agreement incorporation of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin into electoral politics, there remain several republican paramilitary groups who wish to use force to destabilise Northern Ireland – such as the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA. Irish security forces continue to be used to try to prevent attacks by such

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    For well over a century, there has been political turmoil throughout the Irish isle stemming from the British occupation of Northern Ireland. With this occupation goes a tradition of armed resistance to the British military and other political installations. This tradition generally only found effective expression when large sections of the Irish people, faced with the British government's denial of the legitimate demand for Irish independence, exercised the right to use armed struggle (Coogan 10). The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was formed after the Easter Rising of 1916, which was the first major uprising in Irish history. Their goal was to remove the British from the Irish isle and unite Ireland once and for all under home rule. Although many may consider the IRA to be nothing more than a terrorist faction that has had no political strength and puts its own best interests first, it is clear that their actions have influenced Irish and British politics and that, even through violence, they keep the best interests of their people at heart. To this day, however, the British maintain that their influence is needed in the north and have yet to show any signs of…

    • 2516 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although it failed, the first Home Rule bill could be seen as a significant turning point for Irish Nationalism. It appeared to have brought Ireland ‘within sight of the promise land’ as it was the first time Home Rule had seriously been discussed and the Prime Minister, ‘the greatest politician of his day’ had heavily backed it which meant that it was on the political agenda.…

    • 1924 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The United States is a country that uses the two-party system that focuses on the two major parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. The two-party system allows the electorates to choose a side of their own choice to see what stances and policies are beneficial to themselves. America has not always been a country that used the two-party system. The history associated with the establishment of the two-party system was truly a complicated process with many historical people involved.…

    • 186 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    A two-party system is a political system in which the electorate gives its majority of votes to only two major parties and in which one or the other party can win a majority in the legislature. An example of a two-party system is the United States of America, which has the Republicans and the Democrats. For the candidacy to be president, the person must have a majority of the party supporting him or her. An advantage to having a two-party system is that it provides stability in the government so that not only one party wins the vote to govern the nation all the time. Two-party systems controls campaigning against each other so that one party can gain support of a certain group or minority. Between the two parties of a two-party system there is some agreement. With having a government with a two-party system with two major parties of similar views and of equal strength fighting for control of a government, when the governmental control alternates between the two parties, the policies that shift wont be so radical that the citizens will oppose and revolt against the government.…

    • 1405 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Public services task 2

    • 552 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The IRA is the first irish republic army who were terrorists in the 80s in the UK and they bombed one of the buildings that had a member of parliment in but worstley they affected the UK because of thr destructing they caused for example they would put bombs in bins so that they would explode by civilians and they would use people to walk into buildings with bombs strapped to them in order to blow buildings up, in other words they were very afffected and destructive groiup in the 1970s to the 1970s.…

    • 552 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ap Gov't

    • 1323 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The two main parties are the Conservative party, descended from the old Tory party, and the Labour party, which was organized in 1906 and is moderately socialist. The Liberal Democrats, formed by the merger of the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party, is a weaker third party. Both Scotland and Wales have nationalist parties whose goal is the independence of those respective regions.…

    • 1323 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United states in the twenty-first century is mainly a two-party system. Despite the fact that more than two political parties remain, numerous of American citizens favor to choose between the two big factions, now called Democrats and Republicans, exchanged principle, focuses, beliefs, and delegates innumerable periods in American history.…

    • 331 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A party system is a concept in comparative political science concerning the system of government by political parties in a democratic country. Political parties have basic similarities; they control the government, have a stable base of mass popular support, and create internal mechanisms for controlling funding, information and nominations. The United States is a two-party system. This is where two major political parties dominate politics within a government. One of the two parties holds a majority in the legislature and usually referred to as the majority party white the other is the minority party.…

    • 620 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States has a two political party system. A political party is a group of individuals who organize to win elections, operate the government, and determine policy. (Sidlow and Henschen 149) The political parties that make up the United States two-party system are the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. However, even before the Republican and Democratic parties formed there was still a two-party system in place.…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Second Party System Essay

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The emergence of the second party system in the United States is a dynamic piece of our political history. This term was used as a way of stating the political party systems during the time period of the early/middle 1800’s. Due to separate views and rapidly rising voting interest, this is where the United States ultimately split into the Democratic and Whig Party. Although both parties were still growing at the time, both devised many major philosophies and had very important political figures as their leader.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The modern political history of Ireland can be separated into two time periods. The first period is it's time spent under British rule as only one territory of the United Kingdom. The second period, which represents the beginning of the modern Irish state, took place during the early twentieth century. The road to national sovereignty was neither easy nor short as Britain was far from eager to let its dependent state go. The first organized movement towards independence occurred in 1916 when revolutionaries declared Ireland to be free from British rule on Easter of that year. Despite the ultimate failure of this initial push towards freedom Britain eventually granted the southern 26, of 38, counties dominion status in 1921. Further steps were taken in 1937 when Ireland drafted its constitution and was granted full sovereignty. The final phase in southern Ireland's independence came in 1949 when its status as a British commonwealth ended and the nation was declared a republic. However, even after disassociating itself from the United Kingdom the southern counties of Ireland wouldn't be completely satisfied as long as the remaining 6 counties that comprised Northern Ireland were still a part of Britain's empire. The predominantly protestant northern counties of Ireland have been a barrier to peace in the region from the first days of the Republic up to today. These counties are considered as a separate state but can also be considered as the same nation. This topic will be explored in more depth after the explanations of both the current Irish state as well as what can be considered the Irish nation.…

    • 1583 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    war and terrorism

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Another group, the IRA, the Irish Republican Army use assassinations and guerilla warfare tactics to cause terrorism.…

    • 833 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Every four years a special event takes place in America. Americans wait for this to see who the new leader of the country will be or to see if the American people will have the same president for another four years. In America the two party system has been in place since the 1800’s, now many different things have changed since that time period. The two party system is a political system in which only two parties have a realistic opportunity to compete effectively for control of the government. This emerged after George Washington’s time in office, the start of this was the federalist versus the Jeffersonian Republicans. In place for an election to take place certain events need to happen. Before a person can be president there must be primary…

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    American Political Parties

    • 1588 Words
    • 7 Pages

    There have been many different political parties since the beginning of the American political system. A political party is made up of a group of people that share common goals and ideals, and these people work together to help elect people to offices that share these goals to represent them. Political parties work to try to control the government and their ultimate goal is to win as many elections and to gain as many offices as possible.…

    • 1588 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It would be reasonable to assert that the political culture in Ireland has changed radically over the past three decades. To explore this we must take into account that Ireland was a sovereign independent democratic country built on a Constitution that gave the Irish electorate control over its government representatives. This was carried out by means of democratic election.…

    • 1855 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays