Tribal politics in Ireland

There are real tribal differences between the Irish political parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that date back hundreds of years before the foundation of the modern Irish State, according to two political scientists. An analysis of the names of all of the Irish members of parliament who have served in the Irish parliament shows that Fine Gael members are more likely to come from Norman/English families while Fianna Fáilers tend to come from indigenous Irish Gaelic backgrounds. The analysis was carried out by Dr Eoin O’Malley of DCU (a son of former Progressive Democrat leader Des O’Malley) and Dr Kevin Byrne of Trinity College Dublin. They based their research on the fact that Irish surnames are among the oldest in the world, dating back many centuries. The origin of almost all of those names, whether Gaelic, Norman or English, is known. After identifying the surname origin of every one of the 1,100 members of parliament ever elected, the researchers found significant differences in the distribution of surnames between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. While 64% of Fianna Fáil members have surnames of exclusively indigenous Irish Gaelic origin, only 51% of Fine Gael members do. The opposite pattern is seen for English/Norman surnames, with 22% of Fine Gael members bearing names of that origin, but only 12% of Fianna Fáil deputies. While a surname of a given origin isn’t enough to predict a politician’s party, there is a bias in affiliation toward Fianna Fáil members of parliament having indigenous Irish Gaelic surnames and Fine Gael members having Norman and English surnames. The probability of these differences arising by chance is very remote, so tribal polarization between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is statistically significant. In addition, Fianna Fáil has significantly more members of parliament with indigenous Irish Gaelic surnames than would be expected given the Irish population, while Fine Gael has more members with Norman and English surnames than a random sampling of Irish citizens would warrant. The academics speculate that the division between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael reflected an underlying division in Irish politics between constitutional nationalists and indigenous Irish Gaelic nationalists, which was important throughout the 19th century. Many of those who had supported the Irish Parliamentary Party before 1918 went on to back Fine Gael. Irish Party MPs have an almost identical distribution of surname origins to that of Fine Gael members of parliament but a significantly different one from Fianna Fáil members. They speculate that the divisions between constitutional and radical nationalism have roots in an important division in the country from the 12th century: that between the Norman/English and the indigenous Irish Gaelic population. The researchers suggest that these Norman and English formed a strong element of the support base for constitutional politics that eventually went on to be represented by Fine Gael, whereas higher levels of support from the larger indigenous Irish Gaelic strand in Irish society contributed to making Fianna Fáil historically stronger up to February 2011.