(Paperback)

The aim of this book is to explain this anomaly, how and why independents can endure in a democracy that is one of the oldest surviving in Europe and has historically had one of the most stable party systems.

(Hardback)

There are more independents in the Irish parliament than the combined total in all other industrial democracies. This book analyses and explains the reasons for the significance of a breed of politician long believed extinct in many national political systems. -- .