The question wasn’t so much continuity or change, it was pitched as stability or something else. 

Sinn Féin’s pitch for change, however, wasn’t exactly clear. The party’s policy documents largely expressed radical promises for change, but the overall message didn’t seem to resonate as evidenced by lower turnout. 

Across the country, the electorate voted for different versions of what change was, but what that may result in is continuity.

RESULTS: GENERAL ELECTION 2024

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Cork East

Cork North Central

Cork North West

Cork South Central

Cork South West

Kerry

Clare

Limerick City

Limerick County

Tipperary North

Tipperary South

Waterford

Dublin Bay North

Dublin Bay South

Dublin Central

Dublin Fingal East

Dublin Fingal West

Dublin Mid West

Dublin North West

Dublin Rathdown

Dublin South Central

Dublin South West

Dublin West

Dun Laoghaire

Carlow/Kilkenny

Kildare North

Kildare South

Laois

Longford/Westmeath

Louth

Meath East

Meath West

Offaly

Wexford

Wicklow

Wicklow/Wexford

Cavan/Monaghan

Donegal

Galway East

Galway West

Mayo

Roscommon/Galway

Sligo/Leitrim

2. The centre (left) did hold

With the collapse of the Green Party for the second time in living memory, there was a cohort of centre-left voters out there to be wooed. 

Despite fears from Sinn Féin in the days before the election that those who had flocked to Eamon Ryan in 2020 would keep their lot in with the government, the votes seemed to flow to those on the centre-left.

The Labour Party and Social Democrats will each return additional TDs in places that had been considered not just unlikely, but impossible — Marie Sherlock’s pipping of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch didn’t just spare the establishment’s blushes, it gave her party a formidable new TD.

3. Leaving a party only works in certain cases

Leaving a political party is not always the death knell of a political career. In the next Dáil, there will be the likes of Noel Grealish, Verona Murphy, Carol Nolan, and Brian Stanley who’ve left parties and excelled.

However, the early counts of election 2024[/utl] are littered with those who did the opposite. 

Former Sinn Féin TDs Violet Anne Wynne and Patricia Ryan put up a combined total of under 1,000 votes, while former Fianna Fáil TD and senator Eugene Murphy also lost out.

4. Campaigns matter

Micheál Martin always says it. Asked at any point in the past 18 months about his party’s polling, Mr Martin would tell you that “campaigns take on a life of their own”. These last three and a half weeks have proven just that.

Case in point: the word Kanturk is no longer just shorthand for a town in northwest Cork that produces handy hurlers. When the dust settles later this week, all political parties will ruminate over just what they did and could have done better. 

For some, there will be the harsh reality that they are seeking new jobs. Much of their focus will be on what could have been done differently.

5. As does local work

Irish people like to feel connected to their TDs. Maybe there’s a genetic reason, maybe it’s cultural. But the electorate likes to know that the person they’re voting for has done the work locally.

In Dublin North-West, former Fine Gael TD Noel Rock did not succeed in winning back the seat he lost in 2020. Some in the constituency felt that his late entry into the race — just four weeks out — played a big part in this. 

Likewise, Gráinne Seoige was defeated by her running-mate, councillor John Connolly.

6. Civil War politics is well and truly over

While there remain some Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael voters who would rather die than put a preference in the other party’s box, the transfer patterns across the weekend saw Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael voters largely see the two parties as one bloc.

Exit polling showed that 30% of Fianna Fáil voters went for Fine Gael as their second choice, with 32% flowing the opposite way.

In some key races, those votes were massive — it was the transfers from Mary Fitzpatrick in Dublin Central which put Paschal Donohoe over the top.

7. The power of celebrity may not be that powerful

Ireland has no shortage of names in politics who first became known elsewhere — junior housing minister Alan Dillon kept his seat in Mayo, a county he served in Gaelic football for many years. But this time out, Billy O’Shea in Kerry, Gráinne Seoige and even Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, all missed out.

8. Online is not the real world

While social media support flocked to far-right candidates over the last few months, the nationalist movement came away without seriously contesting for a seat. Having taken just a handful of council seats in June, it was a rebuke of far-right politics.

9. There is a generational divide in Irish politics

According to polling, 55% of people over 65 voted for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with that figure at 48% in the 50-64 age bracket.

Sinn Féin took just 13% and 16%, respectively in those age brackets. In the 18-24 age cohort, Sinn Féin took 29% of voters, equal to the two other mid-sized parties. That is an opportunity for Sinn Féin and others but speaks to a problem for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

10. Government formation may take a while

Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe was hopeful of a government being formed pre-Christmas, but Finance Minister Jack Chambers is less bullish.

The truth is that even if a Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael vow renewal has the legs to get over 88 seats, which it is unlikely to, it will take some time to nail down the specifics of how the marriage may look.

Who gets to be Taoiseach first? Do they rotate at all if there’s a big gap in seats? What does a cabinet look like? And that is before you even get into the policy.