ABSTRACT
After every election, analyses tend to highlight the unusual degree of volatility, the exceptional gains made by one party, or the exceptional losses of another. Some are nostalgic for the golden age of the Irish party system, when it was stable and predictable and everyone knew the outcome of elections long before the votes were counted. The outcome in seats of the 1997 election was uncannily similar to that of 1989, and the resulting government was the same one that emerged then. The electoral strength of candidates can also be assessed in terms of the ratio between their first-preference votes and the Droop quota, the number of votes that guarantees election. Fianna Fail gained nine seats over the previous election, its largest advance since 1977, and entered government as the dominant party after the election. In these terms it had a very successful election, and yet its share of the votes hardly moved from its 1992 trough.
