Sharon Keogan: Fianna Fáil's 100-Year Disconnect

Here, look, I rise today because I wanted to address the Fianna Fáil Ardais that took place last week. I wanted to speak about it not just as a former member, but because of the simple fact of it being the 100th anniversary of the founding of that party should be cause for reflection on the history and developments of this nation, not just for current and former Fianna Fáil members, but for us all. What struck me most was the distance, not just in time, but on purpose, between the party that was founded in 1926 and the party that gathered last weekend. That original programme was rooted in economic independence and in keeping families rooted on the land. It was a vision of a state that would stand firmly on its own feet. And yet, 100 years on, we find ourselves presiding over a crumbling agricultural sector, fuel protests driven by real hardship and an economy that is abjectly dependent rather than self-sufficient. There is a disconnect there that cannot simply be brushed aside as a passage of time. I do not say that lightly, nor do I ignore the many people within Fianna Fáil who continue to work hard and believe in public service. The councillors, the activists, the ordinary members, they deserve better than what they are being given. They have been led down repeatedly by a leadership that has too often been improvisational rather than principled and managerial rather than ambitious. And the contrast with its own history is stark. This was a party that in the 1930s, when the country was far poorer than it is today, had the ambition to build entire towns. Today, we have record homelessness and a state that struggles to deliver even basic housing at scale. And that brings me to what I found most striking about the Ardèche itself. There was a sense that the party is no longer entirely sure what it stands for. In seeking to be everything to everyone, it risks becoming nothing to no one. You see, it's not just in policy but in tone. There is a growing perception that the leadership is more concerned with signalling its progressive credentials to a small, urban, liberal audience than with listening to the instincts of their own traditional base. That base was never abstract or ideological. It was practical, local, rooted in communities, in work, in family life. When a party loses that connection, it loses more than votes. It loses its purpose. There is an historical irony in all of this. Fianna Fáil was born out of a split with a Sinn Féin that had become inward-looking, fragmented and detached from practical politics. Lamas himself later described it as a movement that had drawn in all sorts of queer cranks, losing sight of the central task of governing with people making speeches in favour of vegetarianism and a single tax. The question now, uncomfortably, is whether that description sits more easily with the parts of modern Fianna Fáil than they might like to admit. Go raibh maith agat. you