The 100th anniversary of any political party is a significant event. It’s exactly a century ago on Saturday that Fianna Fáil was founded in a restaurant called La Scala off O’Connell Street in Dublin 1.
It was therefore unsurprising that the mood at the party’s ardfheis in the Dublin Royal Convention Centre was one of celebration, with the party’s legacy at the front and centre of the conference. A small but noisy pro-Palestinian protest outside did not dampen the mood and the party could boast that 2,000 people had registered for the event, a high for recent years.
During the course of the day, the party’s senior figures focused on the contribution Fianna Fáil has made to Irish society and life over the course of that time.
Much like the Social Democrats in Sweden and the Institutional Revolutionary Party in Mexico, Fianna Fáil emerged from a revolution and went on to dominate Irish politics for more than 80 years. And then suddenly, because of the banking crisis and economic bubble it created, the party’s fortunes plummeted. The oak tree of Irish politics was felled and there were open questions about whether or not it would survive.
The erosion of support for Fianna Fáil would probably have occurred in any instance during a time when politics was becoming increasingly fragmented and polarised throughout Europe and, indeed, globally. The financial crisis accelerated that. Under Micheál Martin, the party has made a comeback and has returned to its status as the biggest party, albeit only a little over half the size of what it was at the height of its powers.
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There have been wobbles for the party and for Martin but, right now, there was no talk of any prospective heaves. One of the party’s dissidents joked that it was hard to identify a Wes Streeting or an Andy Burnham among the potential leadership contenders. At the same time, that TD acknowledged that there was no immediate threat to Martin’s leadership, unlike that of Keir Starmer.
Many of the themes at the ardfheis dwelt on the party’s significant achievements and its impact on Irish political life. In his doorstep interview Martin cut to the chase, saying that Fianna Fáil had been responsible for many of the significant developments in Ireland over those 100 years.
He talked about the Constitution, which he said protected fundamental rights and religious minorities at a time when fascism was spreading across Europe.
The other milestones identified by Martin and others as its legacy were neutrality during the second World War; free education; Ireland’s entry into the Common Market; as well as the Belfast Agreement in 1998.
Two of the party’s guiding aims set out in its Corú were for a United Ireland and for Irish to be spoken throughout Ireland. When it was suggested to him in an interview on Raidió na Gaeltachta that neither of those aims had been achieved, Martin quibbled, pointing to the 1998 agreement and also to his Shared Island initiative, which could be, alongside the ban on public smoking, his big legacy project. On Irish, he said that more people speak Irish now than 100 years ago. That is a bit of a stretch, given that the areas where Irish is spoken as a first language are receding every year.
“Over 100 years, we didn’t get everything right but our record is a record of real and sustained achievement which no other party can match,” he said in his leader’s address on Saturday evening.
That said, his speech was forward-looking, with a none-too-subtle effort to set Fianna Fáil aside from Opposition parties as one that solves problems, that is centrist in outlook, and does not adopt crowd-pleasing or populist positions in a time of huge global turbulence.
“Let others practice the politics of anger – the politics of exploiting people’s problems,” he said. “Our duty, our obligation, is to do the much harder work of solving those problems.”
Martin focused on the big issues for Fianna Fáil and its Government partners to deal with in an effort to reach long-term stability. They comprised infrastructure, trade deals such as the one with Canada, more houses and apartments (he conceded the Government was not building enough), alternative sources of energy, and shared Ireland.
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He touched on the importance of traditional education. “No app, and no AI model will ever replace the need to develop your own ability to reason and interact with others.”
He also reiterated the Government’s position of support for Ukraine, and its condemnation of genocide in Gaza.
There was also a spirited defence of the European Union and its values, in advance of what could become the defining moment of his time as Taoiseach: Ireland’s presidency of the EU from July.
“In the face of those who want to hollow out the European Union, Ireland must be resolute. We can see in Britain how much damage they can do if left unchallenged.”
Despite the party’s travails, for this weekend there was a mood of buoyancy at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre. There was even a subtle reworking of a party slogan from the Celtic Tiger era.
“We know how much is still to be done – but we have no doubt that Ireland can and will meet these challenges.
“Moving Ireland forward. That is our work. That is our commitment,” he said as he closed his speech.
The performance was certainly confident. Nonetheless, you wondered was it Martin’s last ardfheis address as party leader?