Irish Elections
AS OF 2026-08-30 · 45 CONTESTS · general election, 29 November 2024 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
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Where the chamber sits · 5.5 of 10, left to right, spread 1.5 →
Every Dáil election from 1922 to 2024 and every presidential contest since 1938: the Treaty split that set the party system for ninety years, de Valera's long ascendancy, the 1977 landslide that broke the economy, the crash that broke Fianna Fáil, and the two civil-war parties finally governing together.
Dáil seats
174
88 for a majority
Elections since 1922
45
legislative and presidential
Uncontested presidencies
5
of 13, a single nominee, no vote held
Parliamentary elections
Every Dáil election since the Free State, newest first. Seats are the count's final figure, not the first-preference standing, which is why the two columns disagree so often.
After the crash · 2011–
In 2011 Fianna Fáil lost fifty-eight seats, the heaviest defeat any Irish governing party has suffered, and the duopoly that had defined the state since 1932 began to dissolve. By 2020 Sinn Féin topped the poll; by 2024 the old civil war parties governed together, which would have been unthinkable in any previous era on this page.
Fianna Fáil 48Sinn Féin 39Fine Gael 38others 23
Fianna Fáil 38Sinn Féin 37Fine Gael 35others 32
Fine Gael 50Fianna Fáil 44Sinn Féin 23others 19
Fine Gael 76Labour 37Fianna Fáil 20others 14
Three elections in eighteen months · 1981–2007
The instability of the early 1980s gave way to Haughey and Reynolds, then to a rainbow coalition assembled without an election, then to Bertie Ahern's three consecutive wins on the back of the Celtic Tiger. Turnout fell throughout.
Fianna Fáil 78Fine Gael 51Labour 20
Fianna Fáil 81Fine Gael 31Labour 21
Fianna Fáil 77Fine Gael 54Labour 17
Fianna Fáil 68Fine Gael 45Labour 33
Fianna Fáil 77Fine Gael 55Labour 15
Fianna Fáil 81Fine Gael 51Progressive Democrats 14
Fianna Fáil 75Fine Gael 70Labour 16
Fianna Fáil 81Fine Gael 63Labour 15
Fianna Fáil 78Fine Gael 65Labour 15
Lemass to the crash of 1977 · 1961–1977
The economy opened, the Fianna Fáil vote held, and the Fine Gael and Labour parties learned to run as a National Coalition. The 1977 election was won by Fianna Fáil on a manifesto of abolished rates and car tax, a landslide that produced a fiscal crisis and, within two years, Charles Haughey.
Fianna Fáil 84Fine Gael 43Labour 17
Fianna Fáil 69Fine Gael 54Labour 19
Fianna Fáil 75Fine Gael 50Labour 18
Fianna Fáil 72Fine Gael 47Labour 22
Fianna Fáil 70Fine Gael 47Labour 16
De Valera's Ireland · 1932–1957
Fianna Fáil in power for all but six of twenty-five years, a new constitution in 1937, neutrality through the Emergency, and two inter-party governments assembled from everyone else when the electorate tired of it. The republic was declared in 1949 by a coalition led by a party that had opposed it.
Fianna Fáil 78Fine Gael 40Labour 12
Fianna Fáil 65Fine Gael 50Labour 19
Fianna Fáil 69Fine Gael 40Labour 16
Fianna Fáil 68Fine Gael 31Labour 14
Fianna Fáil 76Fine Gael 30Independent 10
Fianna Fáil 67Fine Gael 32Labour 17
Fianna Fáil 77Fine Gael 45Labour 9
Fianna Fáil 69Fine Gael 48Labour 13
Fianna Fáil 77Cumann na nGaedheal 48National Centre Party 11
The Free State · 1922–1932
The first Dáil elections were fought over the Treaty by the two halves of Sinn Féin, and the losers of the civil war abstained from the parliament they had lost in. Cumann na nGaedheal governed a decade of austerity and state-building, and in 1932 handed power to the men it had recently been shooting at, which is the single most important thing that happened in Irish democracy.
Fianna Fáil 72Cumann na nGaedheal 57Independent 14
Cumann na nGaedheal 62Fianna Fáil 57Labour 13
Cumann na nGaedheal 47Fianna Fáil 44Labour 22
Cumann na nGaedheal 63Republican 44Farmers' Party 15
Sinn Féin (Pro-Treaty) 58Sinn Féin (Anti-Treaty) 36Labour 17
Presidential elections
All thirteen presidential elections, newest first. Five were never held: a single nominee was returned unopposed, and those rows carry no result because there was none.
Mary Robinson onwards · 1990–
In 1990 Mary Robinson trailed Brian Lenihan on first preferences and won on transfers, the first non-Fianna Fáil president and the first woman, and the office has been contested and consequential since. Michael D. Higgins served two terms; Catherine Connolly's 63% in 2025 is the highest first-preference share the presidency has recorded.
The office nobody contested · 1938–1983
Ireland's presidency is largely ceremonial, and for most of its history the parties agreed a candidate rather than fight for it. Five of the thirteen elections here were never actually held: a single nominee was returned unopposed, in 1952, 1974, 1976, 1983 and again in 2004. The contests that did happen were Fianna Fáil's to lose, and it lost only once.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Turnout since 1922
Above 70% for most of the century, and below 63% at four of the last five elections. Irish turnout is now among the lower half in western Europe.
The civil-war parties' combined share
Fianna Fáil plus Fine Gael took more than 80% of first preferences into the 1980s and around 42% in 2024.
Records & superlatives
How Irelandian elections work
PR-STV, the only one of its kind here
Ireland elects its parliament by single transferable vote in three-, four- and five-seat constituencies. Voters rank candidates, surpluses and eliminations transfer, and the count runs for days. It is the only national PR-STV system in this atlas, and it makes first preferences and seats diverge in ways no other system here does.
Transfers decide it
First-preference votes are not the result. Mary Robinson trailed by five points on first preferences in 1990 and won the presidency on transfers; the seat tables here show where the count ended, not where it started.
A civil war, then ninety years of it
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael descend from the two sides of the 1922–23 civil war and disagreed about little else for most of a century. That they entered government together in 2020 is the largest fact in modern Irish politics.
Five presidents nobody voted for
In 1952, 1974, 1976, 1983 and 2004 only one candidate was nominated and the election was not held at all. Those rows appear here with no result because there was none.