ABSTRACT
The 1992 election result appeared to show an acceleration in the decline of the traditional Irish two-and-a-half-party system, a trend that had been evident since 1977. Signs of a sea change in the Irish party system had been dramatic enough in 1989, when Fianna Fail had abandoned the "core value" of its entire previous existence and taken a coalition partner for the first time ever. Irish politics would no longer have been peculiar and would have come to look quite like politics in France, for example, or Italy or Spain. The election of 2002 would have seen the Irish party system evolve into a decidedly more European confrontation between centre-left social democrats, on the one hand, and a populist party of the centre-right, on the other. The continuing pivotal role of Fianna Fail in the Irish party system arises in large part because "rainbow" coalitions of its opponents are difficult both to put together and to keep together.
