Sadly, no.
Ireland’s politics are a tricky thing. While there used to be a fierce rivalry between the two largest parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, the two have collapsed in popularity and begun holding on to each other as a mutual life raft. The public conversation in Ireland tends to move from one consensus to another without much real debate. In the abortion referendum for instance, most of those who led the government’s campaign to overturn Ireland’s constitutional amendment forbidding abortion had gotten their start in politics running as pro-life candidates committed to pro-life agendas. They simply announced themselves on the other side with the expectation that the public would accept it with a shrug — which the public did.
So Ireland has been an exception to European politics over the last ten years in that it has not generated a populist, anti-mass immigration party. Although it has had several social referenda related to its constitution, none of the major parties, and vanishingly few independent TD’s, ever represent the 30 to 40 percent of the public who took sides against progressives. The media obsessively stirs up fear that a “far right” is rising in Ireland. And although there have been massive demonstrations opposing the government’s current immigration and asylum policies, and even arson committed to prevent the government from setting up its IPAS centers for housing migrants and refugees, the launch of every ideologically right-wing party has been a botch, ruined by extremism and crankery. A true sign of disconnect happened in the last referendum which was meant to change the supposedly misoginistic clauses of the constitution which oblige the Irish state to, as far as possible, make home life for a mother possible. The government was overwhelmingly for it, the people rejected it.
And one of the leading campaigners against that referenda was the former barrister and social conservative Maria Steen who had been a major figure on the losing side of the abortion and gay marriage debates in the past decade. Steen is an attractive and accomplished mother of five. Even the practical archbishop of Ireland’s liberal commentariat Fintan O’Toole endorsed the idea of her becoming a candidate for president, if only to provide some debate. No one doubts her composure or intelligence. The Irish president is the head of state, but it is one of the least powerful presidencies in Europe. It is mostly ceremonial, and under Michael D. Higgins it has been turned decidedly into a pulpit for supposed Irish values.
Steen put her hat in the ring. To qualify to be on the ballot, one needs 20 nominations from the Houses of the Oireachtas, (174 TDs and 60 Senators). Steen managed only 18 by the deadline. Gript, one of the few outlets rowing against the Irish consensus, has reported that a great deal of party pressure was exercised to prevent Steen from entering.
The Steen candidacy was unlikely to be successful. She does represent Catholic values that are hotly resented in a country whose mood is now notably anti-clerical. (A 2019 video of Pope Leo XIV recounting being physically attacked in Ireland recently surfaced online.) She also seems somewhat allergic to populist modes of rhetoric. Her political cadence is that of a brilliant woman who wants to win you to her side, not a tribune who will tear the corrupt out of their gilded thrones. But, at minimum she was an alternative. And Ireland’s quiet dissenters are looking for some kind of political test case, a campaign that may not help them win, but can help them identify a durable base of voters or a mix of issues. A Steen run for the presidency would have been for the Irish right what William F. Buckley Jr.’s run for New York Mayor was in 1968 — a splashy moment to have a debate and to see who shows up on your side, and work from there. Instead what is left over is the dead consensus between FG/FF — each of them fielding candidates, and a third independent socialist representing Ireland’sperpetual marginal left.