Today Ireland is going into local and European elections. But a few years ago nobody would have quite expected the political conditions that obtain in Ireland today. For much of the past decade, the assumption has been that the two traditionally dominant parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, once rivals and now partners in a coalition government, would continue to lose ground to Sinn Féin, the left-leaning nationalist party, formerly the political wing of the Provisional IRA, as it continued its historic march to become “the largest party, North and South,” on the island.

But, a funny thing happened: Sinn Féin have been cratering in the polls. In part, the reason is obvious. This is an opposition party that has never really opposed the government. It supported the government’s recent failed attempts to rewrite the constitution. It supported the government’s somewhat negligent and undermanned approach to mass migration into Ireland, which has contributed to the housing crisis.

Unsurprisingly, as Ireland pursued the very policies and created the social conditions that caused a populist-right reaction in other European countries, a populist-right reaction seems to be trying to will itself to life in Ireland. But it may fail electorally today because of its hopeless divisions.

Politically, the most savvy politician in dissent is Peadar Tóibín, leader of Auntú (Unity). Tóibín split from Sinn Féin when he took the traditional party stance against abortion, in opposition to the party’s modern progressive stance for it. He took into his new party the organizational energy he learned in SF. His instincts are still largely to frame issues in left-wing terms of human rights, even when he talks about abortion and the rights of the unborn. He has learned to take a practical rather than emotive position on immigration. In many ways his party is “Traditional Sinn Féin” in a time of peace. It is more Euro-skeptic, but not for Irish exit. He says he expects the party to be competitive in dozens of seats today.

Then there is a large crew of other more identifiably right-populist insurgent parties, or as the Irish Times calls them, “far right parties.” There is the Irish Freedom Party led by Hermann Kelly, which is an avowedly anti-EU party. There is Ireland First, led by Phillip Dwyer, who split from the National Party, led by Justin Barrett, who seems to have totally embraced the idea of being a far-right maniac by quoting Hitler. There’s another party, Irish People, running over 50 candidates. And there are many many independent candidates running on other themes of rejecting the Irish establishment’s politics, curbing high immigration, or cracking down on corruption and the mismanagement of national resources. As political startups in a culture that is relatively conformist, these newer parties tend to attract marginal people even as candidates.

Some kind of shakeup has seemed inevitable. Referendums on gay marriage and abortion in the last decade revealed that roughly one-quarter to one-third or more of the country still has conservative views which have no major-party representation. But, these candidates seem unlikely to effect that shakeup at least this time, and far more likely to cancel out one another’s efforts in these multi-candidate races.

In fact, while opinion polls have shown that Ireland seems ripe for a populist shakeup, the lasting political consequences from this election may fall on the left, where the Green Party, Labour, The Social Dems, and Sinn Féin are fighting over a very similar constituency.