Vladimir Lenin once said, “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Revolutionary changes can occur in unexpected ways, and that is what happened in the Irish general election last Saturday as Sinn Féin was returned as the most popular party in the country. The election result marks the first time in the history of the state that a left-wing party has a chance of leading a government. All previous governments have been led by one of the center-right Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties, both of which have their roots in opposing sides of Ireland’s civil war of 1922–23.

The political and media establishment were taken by surprise at the Sinn Féin surge, especially given the party’s poor performance in last May’s local and European elections when we lost half of our councillors and two of our four MEPs. When he called the snap general election, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was confident that he would be leading the next government with a diminished Sinn Féin opposition. However, once the election began, Sinn Féin’s fortunes reversed. Formidable media performers such as Mary Lou McDonald, finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty, and housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin articulated simple and recurring messages that resonated with working-class people. The party’s platform focused on building a hundred thousand public homes, enforcing rent controls, introducing free health care, and reducing the pension age to sixty-five. As the election campaign went on, we rose in a succession of polls, which boosted the morale of our support base and ultimately created the belief among a significant section of the population that Sinn Féin was a credible alternative government in waiting.

The party’s election success comes on the back of a decade of harsh austerity, shocking levels of child homelessness amid another construction boom, and a public health system that is all but crumbling. Despite Fine Gael’s claims of a recovery and ongoing economic growth, the lived reality for most people is completely different. Disposable incomes have been decimated by extortionate rents and the public health system is in such a bad state that the Irish Hospital Consultants Association called on the government to declare a national emergency. The refusal of successive right-wing governments to invest in public transport has seen the quality of life for many people deteriorate as a result of soul-destroying commutes that leave little time for family and social life.