Has Ireland finally grown up?

We had our much longed for general election here in Ireland on Friday.

A nation historically very attached to our parliamentary system, we exercised our electoral power and demolished the ruling Fianna Fáil party, reducing their representation in parliament from 78 seats to a mere 20. The Greens, coalition partners with Fianna Fáil, are now on the brink of extinction, winning no seats. They compromised their ideological integrity and appeared apparently unconcerned (up until last November) that they were helping to shore up a failing and despised government.

In power for the past 13 years, Fianna Fáil presided over the now fabled 'Celtic Tiger' boomtime, and as we now know, disasterously mismanaged it. Sadly, it has taken an economic collapse that has the country on the edge of bankruptcy to force a major shift in the political landscape.

We are attached to our parliamentary system because it was hard won, and we are, or were, attached to political parties because of lingering divisions from those days of civil war, of family allegiances four generations old. This election has shown that those parochial, 'civil war politics' can no longer work - the party entrusted with ruling this country for the good of it's people have destroyed it, and with it the shining future the young of the country were led to believe awaited.

The Republic of Ireland is a young country. Perhaps now, after civil war, terrorism, recession, boom, and more recession, the nation's imagined community has reached the end of adolescence and can begin to recover on the domestic and international stage and behave as a responsible member of the international community.

The likely coalition of Fine Gael and Labour have a very difficult job ahead of them. It will be largely thankless (just look at how Obama's doing) and having done all the hard work to get the country off it's knees, they will probably be booted out of government after two or three terms by an electorate disillusioned with further belt-tightening policies. At least, this election has shown we can hope that if Fianna Fáil do return to power one day it will be because they have policies that appeal and ideas that will work, and not because one's great-great-grandfather fought on their side over a century ago.