There are a number of political parties in the Republic of Ireland, and coalition governments are common. The state is unusual as a developed nation in that politics is not primarily characterised by the left-right political divide. This is because the two historically largest political parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not identify themselves first and foremost as either centre-right or centre-left parties. Rather, both parties arose from the great split that occurred in Irish politics at the time of the 1922–1923 Civil War, that followed the foundation of the state. Both descended from factions of the original Sinn Féin party: Fine Gael from the faction that supported the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty and Fianna Fáil from the anti-Treaty faction. This enduring characteristic of the Irish party system is sometimes pejoratively referred to as "Civil War politics".
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“The advice of their elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841–1935)
“Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Whether you want it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political tone.
your eyes a political color.
...
you walk with political steps
on political ground.”
—Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923)
“A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no other law nor kindness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserves a republic in vigour. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“In Ireland they try to make a cat cleanly by rubbing its nose in its own filth. Mr. Joyce has tried the same treatment on the human subject. I hope it may prove successful.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)