Political Cleavages, Party Politics and Urbanisation in Ireland: The Case of the Periphery-Dominated Centre

Abstract

Abstract Irish political parties cannot be easily fitted into a conventional left-right framework. The Lipset-Rokkan centre–periphery concept is employed to explain this situation, and, in particular, to throw light on the persistent success of Fianna Fáil, the nationalist-populist party which has dominated the system since 1932. It is argued that Ireland affords an example of a polity in which the political concerns and style of the rural periphery came to “invade” and dominate the urban centre for more than a generation. Evidence from a study of urban party activists indicates a persistence of rural political styles and ideological perspectives in a social context which has been urban for well over half a century.