We’ve just added a European Parliament section to our website. This lists all of Ireland’s European Elections, and for the first time every count in every constituency is available for all 8 elections, stretching back to the first one in 1979.

Did you know our first MEPs weren’t elected. Between joining the European Parliament in 1973 and the first election in 1979, 10 MEPs were appointed directly by Oireachtas in 1973 and again after the 1977 general election.

From then on, its all been elections. As with all our data, these Euro Election results come with all our usual goodies, including, Party Share, Change from previous election, Transfer Analysis (including our Sankey Chart), Race through the counts and much more.

For the first time, all the counts for the 1989 Irish General Election are available online, on our website.

Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats formed a coalition government after the election.

While Fianna Fáil had hoped to achieve an overall majority, the party actually lost seats. The result was a disaster for Fianna Fáil, particularly when the election was so unnecessary. Fine Gael made a small gain, but nothing substantial. The Progressive Democrats did badly, losing over half their deputies. The Labour Party and the Workers’ Party gained working class votes from Fianna Fáil, but failed to make the big breakthrough, while Sinn Féin polled even worse than its 1987 result. The Green Party won its first seat when Roger Garland was elected for Dublin South.

Forming a government proved to be extremely difficult. Many in Fianna Fáil had hoped that the minority government could continue where it left off, particularly if the “Tallaght Strategy” continued. However, Fine Gael refused to support the government and so a deadlock developed. The prospect of forming a government seemed remote, so much so that Charles Haughey was forced to formally resign as Taoiseach. For the first time in Irish history a Taoiseach and a government had not been appointed when the new Dáil met. However, twenty-seven days after the general election, Fianna Fáil entered into a coalition government for the first time in its history – with the Progressive Democrats.

(from wikipedia)

We’ve added the count data for all the constituencies in the 1992 General Election.

The big winner of the election was the Labour Party, doubling their first preference share of the vote, from the previous election.

The election saw Moosajee Bhamjee (Labour Party) become the first Muslim Teachta Dála (TD).

We’ve just added all the count data for the 1997 General Election.

This was the election that saw the end of the ‘Rainbow Coalition’ and the start of a new Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats government.  There was a big drop in support for Labour and the PDs, while there were gains for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil.

The Green Party picked up an extra seat, with John Gormley elected in Dublin South–East. He narrowly beat Progressive Democrat – Michael McDowell for the last seat. Sinn Féin won a seat for the first time since 1957 in the Cavan–Monaghan constituency with Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin. The Socialist Party also gained a seat in Dublin West.