THE story in Dublin is that two big parties competed for decades and took turns governing.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were inheritors of the legacy of the Civil War, defined by the different sides their political ancestors had taken. Fianna Fáil originated among the refusers of the Anglo-Irish Treaty which settled the War of Independence in 1921.
Fine Gael had evolved out of those on the other side.
And rancour between those positions was so strong, right up to certainly twenty years ago, that it seemed inconceivable that these parties would pull together.
But neither could govern without a coalition partner and with the rise of Sinn Féin they were running out of potential allies, so had to turn to each other.
A large part of their motivation was to keep Sinn Féin out of government because it was a party tainted by past association with the IRA and which still refused to give up mythologising the IRA as noble and heroic.
But Sinn Féin has for the last fifteen years been viewed as being on an inevitable trajectory towards power and is now in trouble, having been eclipsed in two recent by-elections.
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See More: Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Ireland, Politics, Sinn Féin
