Politics by Numbers is a new series for The Journal where broadcaster, author and spreadsheet stan Gavan Reilly takes a data deep dive into a political point of the week.

IT WAS HARD not to get swept up in the sense of euphoria in Belfast for the last couple of weeks. The inaugural hosting of the Fleadh Ceoil na hÉireann coincided with the annual Féile an Phobail, the music and performing arts festival based around The Falls Road in Belfast, which claims to be the island’s biggest community event.

As a panellist at a couple of Féiles it is self-evident how the nationalist parts of the city feel empowered and invigorated by having such a proud display of their community’s best qualities. Throwing the Fleadh on top of it this year compounded it, and felt like a tangible display of how Irishness and Irishism are flourishing north of the border.

But that didn’t quite match the tone of the discussions in Féile. As a community, nationalism has never felt so vibrant, but politically the community does not feel on the front foot – despite Stormont having a republican First Minister for the first time. This feeling is so acute that the Belfast commentariat are increasingly fixated on the idea that Stormont might collapse again for little reason other than electoral gain.

That’s both an awful reflection on the state of affairs, and a natural prospect for a statelet whose government has been non-functional for almost 10 cumulative years since 1998. When you’ve spent 37% of your existence not actually existing, it’s easy to build up an appetite for inaction.

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The current malaise is the downstream consequence of the Rubicon being crossed in 2017, when the Executive collapsed not because of any........

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