The public face of Irish democracy appears to have dramatically changed from the predictable patterns that characterised it over most of the twentieth century. Gone is the easy dominance of Fianna Fáil, operating as the country’s natural governing party, to be replaced by fragmented multi-party competitions. Decades of stable majority governments have been replaced by complex coalition bargains reflecting shifting alliances. Yet, in many other ways, familiar patterns of political organisation continue to drive unchanging electoral dynamics, producing Ireland’s distinctive representative politics. This chapter seeks to discover whether Irish politics has really changed over the past half-century.