It's Only Words? Analysing the Roots of the Irish Party System Using Historical Parliamentary Debates.

This article examines the 1921–1922 parliamentary debates in the Irish Dáil Éireann over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which proposed the establishment of the Irish Free State and led to a split in the dominant Sinn Féin party, a subsequent civil war, and the formation of Ireland's long-standing party system. Using quantitative text analysis of the debates and socio-economic data on the parliamentarians, the study finds surprisingly few differences between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions in terms of policy preferences, sentiment, language complexity, or socio-economic background. These findings challenge the conventional view that the Irish party system's origins lie in deep ideological or social cleavages, suggesting instead that the split was primarily centered on the Treaty itself without broader substantive divisions. The article highlights the significance of parliamentary debates as arenas for political conflict and calls for further comparative research on similar critical junctures in other post-colonial and parliamentary contexts.