On April 1, the Clough Center hosted a panel discussion of the election that took place in Ireland on November 29, 2024. This panel, which contributed to the Clough Center’s Spring 2025 Election series, was held in partnership with Boston College’s Irish Institute. Mary C. Murphy (Director of Irish Institute at Boston College), who served as the moderator, spoke alongside Gary Murphy (Political Science Professor at Dublin City University) and Theresa Reidy (Senior Lecturer at University College Cork).

Mary C. Murphy started the discussion by noting that Ireland has a multi-party democracy with a proportional representation electoral system. She mentioned that Ireland’s general election results in 2024 led to a period of negotiations between the major winning parties to form a coalition. 

Gary Murphy added that Ireland’s multi-party system does not have any far-right party. Then he briefly introduced the three major political parties in Ireland: Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin, and Fine Gael. Then he gave an overview of the recent election results compared to the previous general elections, including the one in 2020.

Gary Murphy linked the rise of the Sinn Féin party in this election to their anti-austerity and pro-state intervention policies. In a sense, people voted for Sinn Féin because of the housing crisis and discontent with living costs.

Teresa Reidy, speaking next, explained the ideological delineations of the major political parties in Ireland. She named Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as centrist, and Sinn Féin as a nationalist party. The big three parties have origins in the Independence War, but each one has a different ideology. She viewed the Green Party and Labor Party as soft leftists.

Reidy mentioned that currently, far-right populist leaders in Europe, such as Georgia Meloni in Italy and Marine Le Pen in France, are gaining support. However, Ireland does not follow this trend, and the incumbent regime managed to get re-elected in 2024 because of several reasons, including (1) the quick recovery from the economic consequences of the pandemic and (2) Ireland’s ability to attract foreign investments, which increased tax revenues.

In Reidy’s opinion, Ireland demonstrates a successful case in the period of hyper-globalization. Due to a stable multi-party system in Ireland, far-right politics has not succeeded in dominating Irish politics. Moreover, the far-right in Ireland is fragmented and disorganized. With that said, there are voices against immigration, positioning themselves as anti-establishment. Gary Murphy mentioned that immigration was not a serious issue until Russia waged the war against Ukraine, and, consequently, a wave of refugees came to the country.

In the concluding part of the panel, the speakers addressed US-Ireland relations. Thus far, Ireland has attracted significant foreign investment from US companies such as Pfizer and Facebook, which have established headquarters in Ireland. The companies sell their products back to the US and export to the EU. This has contributed to the government’s revenues and employment. However, the tariffs that the Trump Administration is set to impose may make such companies change their investment decisions because of increasing costs and decreasing profit margins. This will be a challenge for Ireland’s government in terms of tax revenues. Therefore, the consequences for the Irish economy may impact the future elections.