A year of activism, cohesion, and unity of purpose

2024 was always going to be a challenging year for Sinn Féin. Not just because of the potential of a new era for the island as Michelle O’Neill took office as a First Minister for all, but add in elections for the European Parliament, Westminster, and the 26-County local councils and the agenda is packed. There are also two referendums in the 26 Counties and the possibility of an early Leinster House election. It is a busy time for Sinn Féin as the only all Ireland party.

An Phoblacht got the chance to sit down with Sinn Féin Uachtarán Mary Lou McDonald and talked about all of this as well as a United Ireland, the housing crisis, immigration, emigration, and leading the opposition in Leinster House.

In February 2024, Mary Lou McDonald will have been party leader for six years and leader of the opposition in Leinster House for four. We asked how has the journey been so far?

“They have been very eventful years. My reflection this far in is that we have managed very well to frame the politics of change north and south. We have done incredible things when you think of it; First Minster for all, First Sinn Féin First Minster, First nationalist First Minister. That’s seismic stuff. The largest party in local government in the North. That’s huge.

“Personally, it seems likes six weeks, six months. I don’t have that sense of it being a long time. It has been so busy. It has been so intense at times. I actually can’t believe that it has been six years to be honest. It seems to have gone so quickly. I have enjoyed it.

“It is a unique position like none other. It is a unique privilege as well. But it is a lot of work, a lot of hours. It is a lot of responsibility, and I am loving it.”

Leading the opposition

Focusing on Leinster House as leader of the opposition, we asked how has Mary Lou found this experience? “Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government together” is according to Mary Lou, “an alliance above all else of those who wish to keep change out, and to keep change out, they believe that they have to keep Sinn Féin out.”

“Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are maybe different only in tone and tempo” and “If there was a case to be made in 2020 for change” it is said McDonald, “amplified much more strongly now.

“I think they hoped that all of that would go away. That people would have made their point. They said we hear you on housing. You don’t have to keep voting for the Shinners. Stop it.”

• Election 2020: 'If there was a case to be made in 2020 for change it is  amplified much more strongly now'

The Sinn Féin President believes that being in opposition has specific challenges. She said, “When you think about it. Government holds all the cards. They have the power of initiative. They make the decisions. For an opposition party to be really effective and sustain itself requires incredible discipline and requires incredible stamina. You have to keep working at it. You have to keep chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. And I am really proud of how the whole team has managed to keep that sense of purpose, focus and energy.”

Mary Lou has used Taoiseach’s questions to bring Gaeilge to the chamber. She said that “It’s important that we use the Gaeilge. I’m not a fluent Irish speaker. I have a reasonable standard of Irish. I have this opportunity week in week out. Why wouldn’t you use Gaeilge.”

EU and local elections

Friday 7 June is the polling day for EU and local elections in the 26 Counties. An Phoblacht asked about Sinn Féin’s preparations and why the elections are important.

Mary Lou pointed to Sinn Féin’s “a record number of candidates”, and emphasised that “This year is a year I believe about activism, cohesion and unity of purpose” and that, “We need to get these things right.”

“This year is a year to be out in our communities on the doorsteps. This is a year to be having conversations with people. It is a year to be listening very carefully to people and listening and talking to each other as political activists. It is going to be an incredibly busy one.

“We need to be out. We need to be visible, and literally building street by street, community by community, the kind of momentum we are going to need to bring all of this home.”

Turning to the key elections issues, McDonald said that, “At a European level, the issues of Irish foreign policy, Ireland’s position as a neutral, nonaligned state I think will have a particular resonance in this election because of what is happening in Ukraine, because of what’s happening in Palestine, because of the disgraceful way in which Ursula von der Leyen and others intervened on behalf of apartheid Israel, and in their spectacular failure in respect of holding Israel to account and upholding international law.

“I think for those reasons the issue of Irish neutrality will be part of the debate. I have no doubt Ireland’s position in Europe post Brexit might feature. But look, the issue, the big issue in Irish society is housing. That remains the case irrespective of which election people are coming out to vote in.”

Why Sinn Féin?

So why does Mary Lou think people are drawn to Sinn Féin? “I think it is because we are at a moment, nationally, all across the island, we are at a moment of change, a pivotal moment. Some of that is generational, I think. We are living through change that is much bigger than Sinn Féin.

“As a political party, we are seen as being at the vanguard of it. People’s expectations of life. People’s experience, people’s world view has evolved, and you have generations of people now saying that they want a politics that’s different, a politics that’s responsive to the realities of their lives, but also a politics that’s big picture and ambitious.

“Our big project is a new Ireland and social justice in real terms, not just rhetoric, but actually a fair chance and opportunity to live in a full republic in an island that’s reunited. I think that really energises people.

“There are other failures that we could talk about. Health being a standout one, disability services, mental health services. The emblematic issue now for whole generations is the issue of housing, affordability and supply.”

Immigration protests

Turning to the question of immigration protests, An Phoblacht asked Mary Lou about her sense of this issue. She believes that, “This is a topic that has to be discussed out. If anyone thought you could just avoid the issue, they were very, very wrong. If anybody thought that you could just say to people, don’t raise concerns, don’t raise that was also wrong.” 

McDonald stressed that, “If anyone is of the view that we can tolerate racism, exclusion, abuse of people’s rights, they are the most wrong of all. So, it is a question of us lining all of that up and just talking to people. I saw in my own area where vulnerable people were brought into a community, in the dead of night, with no notice, no conversation with the community, nothing. And there was a reaction to that.

“We have consistently raised the issue of the need to talk to communities. We are not talking about vetoes. Nobody wants a veto. Reasonable people don’t expect a veto. But if you go to any community across our island, you will find in that community people who run community development, youth services, the local football team, local basketball team, the women’s shed, the men’s shed. There are key stakeholders in any community that you can go and talk to and say ‘This is what is happening. This is who is going to be coming into the community’. We need to talk to people about it. We need to inform people. We need to make them welcome. 

“Government did none of that and then they got all high and mighty and preachy to people when there was a reaction. By the way, that reaction was weaponised unquestionably by some really, really ugly elements in Irish society. The far right. Call them what you will. A really toxic element.”

McDonald said that, “Most of the people that I hear raising issues are not far right. They are people saying 'the housing thing is chronic' and wondering 'what is government doing to make that better'."

• Ireland For All demonstration 2023. 'If anyone is of the view that we can tolerate racism, they are the most wrong of all' – Mary Lou McDonald

Immigration has been raised with Sinn Féin activists on doorsteps, but most people raise the issue of accommodation. Mary Lou said that, “People have raised mainly the issue of accommodation. Most of this comes down to an angst around inability to buy a home or to rent”.

McDonald believes that, “If we get to grips with the housing issue, we will deal with a whole set of other social stresses and strains that are related back to it”. However, she also emphasised that, occasionally, “I have met with a very bigoted, a very narrow view of the world. I think that is really sad. I am also very clear that we give no quarter to that.

“If you are a racist. If you just have an issue with people because of the colour of their skin, Sinn Féin can’t help you with that. We are not the people for you.”

Emigration figures

Emigration is increasingly an issue for young Irish people. We asked Mary Lou about the revelation that in the 12 months to July 2023, 21,000 visas had been issued to Irish citizens to travel to Australia.

Mary Lou told us how when she was in Australia in summer 2022 that she “met exactly people like that”. She said that, “We live on an island. Of course, people are going to travel. Of course, it is a healthy thing to travel. The issue isn’t so much people leaving. The issue is when they can’t find a way back. That’s the problem.

“When I was in Australia, you were meeting people saying I’m here. It’s been a great experience. I would love to go home, and I can’t. We have to be the people to change that. Anybody who has been away and wants to come back home and make their life, raise their family maybe, make their contribution maybe to our economy and our society. You have to have a way to come home. That’s the core issue really.”

• Emigration figures: 'When I was in Australia, you were meeting people saying I’m here. It’s been a great experience. I would love to go home, and I can’t. We have to be the people to change that'

Sinn Féin in Government

What would the first 100 days of a Sinn Féin in government look like?

“What I want from day one is that we enter government with a coherent plan for accelerating housing on every level, in terms of procurement, planning, serviced land. There is a lot of work in that. But in the first 100 days, you would see the new approach of a Sinn Féin government to do with two things; The availability of housing, but also the affordability. Those are the two pillars.

“I think you would see differences in how you do government. I think we need to rebuild the whole idea of not just investing in communities but development from the ground up. All of that has been decimated by Fine Gael in particular over the last decade and more.

“The approach to how you do government really, really matters. It is really important that you are investing in capacity it is the smartest money you will ever spend.

“I don’t think anybody expects a Sinn Féin government of change to do everything. People are realistic. I am realistic. I have made it clear that we are going to build houses. We are going to make preparations for reunification. We will deal with everything else as well.”

United Ireland

We asked about the growing media debate and polls on a United Ireland. Mary Lou believes that, “It is significant that so many publications, commentators, analysts but also stakeholders right across Ireland are now actively taking an interest in this debate and not quietly, saying very loudly that this is a conversation that needs to happen.

“I think that’s a very healthy thing. It’s a very interesting thing. It is a real shame that is not being matched by government attention to this. The government’s Shared Island Unit is not the kind of platform we need to give that conversation a home. 

“One of the things that strikes me is that there has been a change, and there needs to be a further evolution in how we talk about reunification, how we talk about a new Ireland, not in the language of threat or loss, but through the prism of opportunity. I think that’s how we all need to come at this and say to put it crudely what’s in it for me, but also what’s in it for us?

“That might sound like a crude political thing. That’s usually used as a pejorative thing. I actually think this is a really healthy way to come at this debate, to see all of the obvious wins. Energy independence across the island, a net exporter of clean energy, investment opportunities island wide. Research and Development islandwide. Creating scale for ourselves. Creating new capacity for ourselves. Getting health right. Imagining having the opportunity to actually get our health service right across the island.

“The conversation has been interesting. Some of the voices coming from unionism have just been so interesting, and some of them very challenging which is great. We need to be challenged. Nobody should be complacent about this. Nobody has it all figured out. That’s the great beauty of this.

“I notice there is a lot of conversation around symbols and flags. The Irish Times love that conversation, which is fine. It is a conversation that needs to be had. For me, the tricolour is utterly inclusive as our national flag.

“I know talking to people that’s not their first and most immediate concern. Most people that I talk to about Irish unity want to talk about health.”

Focusing on the Sinn Féin People’s Assemblies, Mary Lou said that, “They have had great success in bringing in speakers from different perspectives that are beyond the republican base. I think it’s important that we build on that. I think that initiatives like Ireland’s future, and our own commissions, all of these things run in parallel, and they are all good conversations.”

“All of this is great work, but to reiterate, ultimately the government here needs to put the conversation on a formal footing.”