THE recent by-elections in Dublin Central and Galway West have brought summertime blues for Sinn Féin.

Just a few years ago, the party was on a roll, polling in the thirties in the Republic following a surge result in 2020.

The Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou McDonald, was leading the opposition and seemed on track to become Ireland’s first female taoiseach.

Those stratospheric numbers now seem like a world away.

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In the 2020 election, Dublin Central, McDonald’s home patch, recorded a vote of just under 36% for the party.

In 2024, that support fell to just over 23% and last weekend, it was under 18%. Half of the Sinn Fein support has vanished in just six years in a constituency that should be tailor-made for it.

At a time when the government has been struggling with responding to a cost-of-living crisis, you might think that the lead opposition party would be doing better. But not the case for Sinn Féin.

In some areas, such as Dublin Central, the governing parties fared poorly; the Social Democrats were the beneficiaries of dissatisfaction.

In........

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