Michael Clifford: New government could be sign of Irish politics finally growing up

The election of Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin as Taoiseach at the National Convention Centre in Dublin was a seminal moment in Irish politics.

History tumbled on a sticky, showery morning as the people’s tribunes gathered to sound the death knell for the old way of doing things.

Civil War politics, long dead, was given an official burial. The members of Fine Gael, whose forebears defended the nascent free state against “wild men screaming through the keyhole”, voted to be led in government by the political descendant of those wild men. The reality of modern life has long last intervened. Politics in this state may be finally growing up.