Can Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil bury hatchet?

“You can just tell, almost as soon as they start talking. They’re posher,” so explains the die-hard Fianna Fáiler on how you can spot a supporter of the oul’ enemy, Fine Gael.

It’s a class and sensibility thing, he says, explaining how at a dinner party a number of years ago he was chatting across the table to a woman “from a well-known Fine Gael family”. The conversation ranged from life in general to the arts and literature.

After a while he mentioned his connection to Fianna Fail. “Oh my goodness,” she said, “you don’t seem to me to be a typical Fianna Fáiler.”

To which he replied: “Well you are a typical Fine Gaeler.”

We may not have a class system in Irish society but when it comes to the difference between our two main political parties, a class difference certainly exists in the minds of those involved. This is all the more fascinating now that the election campaign has cemented the notion of these two warhorses possibly entering a coalition together. What seemed utterly unimaginable not so long ago, may be a distinct reality this day next week as the votes are being counted.

If you’ve hung around politics long enough it is usually, though not always, easy to spot the difference between the two species. Remember how the rugby match in London next Saturday was seen as having a possible impact on the Fine Gael vote? The fear was that their boys might have missed a voting opportunity by flying out early to the match. Fianna Fáil would be seen as much more the party of Croke Park. One even imagines that the picnic eaten by both sides from the boot of the car on match day would have a different class of sandwich.

I remember as a young political journalist always being happier to go to a Fianna Fáil event such as a party think-in, or an ard fheis because they were always more fun socially. The Fine Gaelers were more aloof and buttoned-up. They might justifiably argue that they have needed to be over the years, as they regularly had to come in and clean up the mess left behind by those Fianna Fáil muckers.

Former minister Mary O’Rourke, in The Sunday Times last week, suggested her party should enter a “partnership coalition” with Fine Gael, even if Fianna Fáil is the smaller party. However, Fine Gael would have to take on Fianna Fáil as an equal partner, she said. Her list of demands include a 50:50 share of seats around the cabinet table and equal billing when it comes to deciding on policy.

Mrs O’Rourke’s take on the innate differences between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil people is that the Fine Gaelers are “usually more arrogant and more confident and I suppose Fianna Fáil people are more ordinary. I suppose it comes from the landed gentry thing. But I have to say I have loads of Fine Gael friends.”

A long-time Fine Gaeler’s views on the issue pretty much confirm the suspicions of the Fianna Fáil side. The Fine Gaeler pointed out that their view was fixed decades ago around Garrett FitzGerald’s time when “we were better educated and more sophisticated. But that no longer holds true since everybody is better educated now. I’m giving the city perspective here and the country lads would have completely different reasons, all to do with land.

“Fine Gaelers would see the Fianna Fáilers as being totally populist and not looking to the national interest except when it coincided with their own interest. Then we (FG) get elected when there is a hard job to do, to clean up the mess they (FF) left behind.”

We could parse the manifestos of the two parties at this point to highlight policy differences between them, but there is nothing in either which could not be surmounted if it needed to be. Taoiseach Enda Kenny appeared to definitely rule out Fianna Fáil during the week, but last Sunday at the launch of the Fine Gael election manifesto he didn’t appear quite so sure. Asked to outline any ideological differences which might keep the two apart, he failed to do so in any remotely real way. That’s no great surprise considering none exist, and both are essentially centrist parties. He did point out that as far as he is concerned the hangover from Civil War politics no longer exists.

What’s funny about this election campaign is how Fianna Fáil is presenting itself as the fiscally responsible one, saying it will resolutely remain above the negative attack campaigning being thrown about by Fine Gael. Apparently it is going to spend the next week being “relentlessly positive”. It’s hilarious. There is no “you know what”, like a reformed “you know what”.

I reckon the electorate found themselves confused at the start of the campaign with all the Fine Gael talk of extra dosh being thrown about. It was wonderfully reminiscent of Fianna Fáil in its heyday. Once you threw in the Taoiseach’s lengthy delay in ruling Michael Lowry out as a possible government support, you hardly had to close your eyes to tell the difference between the two parties.

There are much bigger issues at play here than personality, sensibility, and similarities. Fine Gael, if it confirmed an interest in coalescing with Fianna Fáil, would risk the votes “borrowed” from Fianna Fáil in 2011 returning to that party, ahead of voting day. In the longer term, Fianna Fáil fears being cannibalised by Fine Gael after entering a coalition in which it was the smaller party.

There may well be a late surge to Fine Gael and Labour in the next week. However, right now, what seemed utterly unthinkable just a little while ago seems far more tangible now.

What still doesn’t quite roll off the tongue though is the phrase: Our Taoiseach Enda Kenny and our Tánaiste Micheál Martin.