In Ireland the small scale of our industrial proletariat, especially in the South, inhibited the emergence of a strong party of the left.
Moreover, within our State the large conservative, property-owning majority created by pre-independence land reform came to be fortuitously split by what was an inherently ephemeral issue, viz. whether at the end of 1921 the new State should accept further conflict with Britain in the hope of securing a republican form of government from the outset, or should wait to achieve that outcome by constitutional evolution.
The disappearance of that issue within a couple of decades did not, however, challenge the survival of the initial party structure created at the time the State was founded.
Parties quickly become biological entities, the existence of which tends to be preserved over long periods by a combination of rivalry between their leaders and loyalty on the part of their followers.
Over time our two main parties developed new roles different from those they had played in the early period of independence.
Thus Fianna Fáil, which started as a radical party, moved pragmatically to the political centre as a result of its policy of industrial protection.
That policy secured for it financial support from a newly-created class of protected industrialists, and later from the construction industry. It also won popular support from new industrial workers.
From the 1940s the only possible alternative government to centrist Fianna Fáil was an alliance bringing together Fine Gael and Labour.
Initially - and once again in the mid-1990s - these two parties had needed the support of some smaller groups. Between the mid-1960s and the late 1980s this pragmatic arrangement was reinforced by a moderate social democratic and liberal evolution on the part of formerly conservative Fine Gael.
The last two decades have seen three significant developments in Irish party politics.
First, support for the two main parties has fallen from 85 per cent 20 years ago to less than 65 per cent today as both of them, together with Labour, compete for votes in the centre.
Second, three new parties have come into existence, one representing a newly-emerged ideological right; another focusing on environmental issues; and a third coming in from the cold of paramilitary violence to draw support from a combination of traditional nationalism and urban disadvantage.
Third, a new uncertainty as to what kind of government voters can secure through casting their votes for any particular party seems to have contributed to a decline of 15 per cent in the proportion of the electorate motivated to vote at general elections.
The electorate is unimpressed with our present predominantly centre-focused party political structure, and the evident reluctance of most parties to defend the general public interest by committing to policies that would take on lobby groups pursuing private interests.
It is not easy to see how we can emerge from this situation, and this has led to simplistic solutions being propounded which ignore some realities.
One of these simplistic solutions is the old chestnut which I think has been around for some 60 years: that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, often anachronistically described as "the two Civil War parties", should form a grand coalition. (In almost 30 years in the Oireachtas I can hardy recall any mention being made by politicians of that long-past conflict or of the issues that gave rise to it. Only popular journalists and some politicians of the left pursuing interests of their own still peddle this line).
It is true that some of the differences that formerly divided the two largest parties have disappeared. Thus, since the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993, Fianna Fáil has formally accepted the principle of consent by a majority in Northern Ireland as a prerequisite of Irish political reunification, and it has also finally adopted the pluralist agenda that it denounced when Fine Gael led the way on that issue some 30 years ago.
Moreover, in Fianna Fáil's two recent political alliances, first with the PDs and then with Labour, that party has shown such remarkable flexibility on policy issues that such matters would be unlikely to be an obstacle to a realignment with Fine Gael.
The real objection to an alliance of these two parties does not lie with policy issues.
It lies with the virtual impossibility of replacing such a "grand coalition" government by an alternative administration given that an FF/FG block would be likely to start with twice as many seats as those held by what would then be a very small and extremely fragmented opposition.
The initial majority of at least 60 that such a government would enjoy would be very difficult to overturn even through a series of general elections.
In theory, a majority of that size could embolden a government to implement highly-desirable economic and social reforms from which all recent governments have consistently backed away. But I would be very sceptical about any such development.
For in our multi-seat constituency electoral system votes are not cast for parties but for individuals - and TDs supporting such controversial reforms introduced by such a grand coalition would remain personally vulnerable to defeat by competing members of their own parties and by members of the opposition.
The TDs elected to support an Irish grand coalition would, therefore, be unlikely to have much stomach for the kind of radical reforms that such coalitions of parties voted in by party list systems - such as the present German grand coalition - may occasionally implement.
Rather than using their parliamentary strength to introduce such reforms, the huge parliamentary majority that such an FF/FG alliance would enjoy would be more likely to tempt such a government to become lazy and inefficient.
Alternation of governments offers the best safeguard for democracy. In Ireland for the foreseeable future the only way to keep this possibility open appears to be the system which we have had since 1948 which offers a choice between a Fianna Fáil-led and a Fine Gael/Labour government.
The more recent arrangement through which Fianna Fáil can remain permanently in power simply by changing partners from time to time is less than ideal from a democratic point of view.
Certainly, no one has yet made a case for any party alignment other than Fianna Fáil versus Fine Gael/Labour being capable of offering the possibility of being able from time to time to change the leadership of our government - which I believe is the most essential requirement of a democratic parliamentary system.