Many associate the Easter Rising with Sinn Féin, but in terms of its planning, organisation and execution, the Rising was an Irish Republican Brotherhood operation, aided and abetted by James Connolly’s Citizen Army.

Sinn Féin came into their own after the Rising, capitalising on the events. De Valera didn’t even join Sinn Féin until 1917. Ironically, the British authorities created Sinn Féin. By labelling the Rising the “Sinn Féin” rebellion, the British conferred on it the leadership of Irish Republicanism. Once identified with the Rising which they didn’t organise, Sinn Féin grasped the chance to lead Irish nationalism, destroying all before them in the 1918 election.

Fast forward more than a century and the big question is not why today’s Sinn Féin party, a different beast, has recently emerged as a force in Irish politics, but why it hasn’t become a bigger force in the Republic. Mary Lou McDonald’s party peaked at 37 per cent in polling between 2021 and 2023, just after the pandemic. When the pandemic receded, so did their support.

By the November 2024 general election, their first-preference vote had fallen to 19 per cent, down 5.5 percentage points from their 2020 breakthrough and their first vote decline in 35 years.

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Maybe one explanation for the party’s inability to regain momentum, is how it frames the economic debate. Anti-capitalist, class-war, Marxist rhetoric might work in the more stagnant, public sector subsidy-dominated North, but doesn’t gain much purchase in the more dynamic, open and commercially minded Republic.

An example of this black and white rhetoric was on display this week in the reaction to the........

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