This paper examines the manner in which an Irish nationalist party, Sinn Féin, competes for votes online in the 2011 Irish general election. The case of Sinn Féin is of particular interest both for students of online campaigning and for students of nationalist politics. The 2011 general election will see a radical rupture in the Irish party system, with the precipitous decline of support for Fianna Fáil (a party that also trades on its nationalist credentials) creating a 25-30 point electoral vacuum in the normally stable Irish system. The 2011 election thus represents an enormous opportunity for Sinn Féin to make electoral gains in the Republic of Ireland. However the campaign will also see their policy platform and historical ties with extra constitutional violence come under close scrutiny. In this context of opportunities and threats, we examine the use of online campaign tools by the central party organization as well as looking at uptake of the microblogging platform Twitter.com by Sinn Féin candidates. The party has a proven history of innovative use of the internet – Sinn Féin was the first Irish party to launch an official website, and have been at the forefront of using social networking sites during previous campaigns. However, the party has always maintained a very centripetal approach to electoral campaigning, and may be uncomfortable with the loss of centralized control over campaign message that candidate Twitter profiles may represent. Thus, it is difficult to anticipate before the event whether Sinn Féin candidates will embrace Twitter as a campaign tool. We describe the party’s online campaign and analyse patterns of uptake of Twitter by Sinn Féin candidates as well as content analyzing candidates’ tweets.
