Notes on Recent Elections The Irish general elections of 1981 and 1982

The general election of June 1981 in the Irish Republic replaced a single-party Fianna Fail government led by Charles Haughey, with a comfortable majority, by a minority Fine Gael/ Labour coalition led by Dr Garret FitzGerald. When that government fell on a budget defeat in January 1982, the ensuing election restored Haughey and Fianna Fail to office but as another minority government. So the two elections of 1981-2 may have ushered in a period of political instability in the Irish Republic replacing 50 years of stable government, 40 of them by one party.