“It was a historic election. An election for real change. I will lead the Sinn Féin team to Stormont (the Irish Parliament, editor’s note) Monday, ready to get the executive going right away. To put money in people’s pockets. Invest in our health services. And to build a better future for all. »
This has been an historic election.
An election of real change.
I will lead the Sinn Féin team to Stormont on Monday, ready to get the Executive up and running right away.
To put money in people’s pockets.
To invest in our health service.
And to build a better future for all pic.twitter.com/orrFtCIVwl
— Michelle O’Neill (@moneillsf) May 7, 2022
The tweet accompanied by a selfie shows a radiant Michelle O’Neill, this election night in Belfast which offered Northern Irish nationalists two great victories: the historic one of the coming to power of Sinn Féin – former political showcase of the paramilitary group Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Ulster – and that of a 45-year-old nationalist woman, for the first time prime minister.
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«I will provide leadership that is inclusive, that celebrates diversity, that guarantees rights and equality for those who have been excluded, discriminated against or ignored in the past,” she added.
Legitimate in the eyes of nationalists
This smiling face hides a determination forged in an Irish Catholic family marked by the Troubles (the thirty-year war between Catholics and Protestants which, from 1969 to 1998, claimed 3,480 lives). Her father, Brendan Doris, a former IRA member, served time in prison. His uncle, Paul Doris, headed the Noraid Committee, responsible for raising funds for the IRA in the United States. Finally, two of his cousins IRA fighters were one injured, the other killed by British security forces. A real legitimacy in the eyes of the nationalists.
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Then there is the woman who campaigned on everyday issues affecting the common man and woman: improving health services in Northern Ireland, the housing crisis and the cost of living, in a context of galloping inflation, targeting centrist voters and refraining from talking about the sensitive subject: the reunification of Ireland. On social issues, there is no doubt that it is also legitimate.
Raised in a working class family
Michelle O’Neill grew up in Clonoe, a small village in County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, in a working class family, the Doris. At 16, while still in school, she became pregnant. The father is absent, the teachers of the Catholic school in which she studies sigh, but her family is there, surrounding her and supporting her by taking care of her little girl, Saoirse, the time for her to spend her exams. Paula Sweeney, one of her friends interviewed by the British daily The Guardianremember : “I knew she would get there. She has guts. She educated herself, worked hard and never stopped. »
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She was 21 when successive IRA ceasefires paved the way for negotiations and the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998. His father is elected in the municipality of Dungannon. She succeeded him from 2005 to 2011. She was then mayor of Dungannon and South Tyrone from 2010 to 2011. At that time, she was noticed by Martin McGuinness, former chief of staff of the IRA, who had become one of the leading figures of Sinn Féin alongside Gerry Adams and architect of the peace process. He pushes her to become a member of the Sinn Féin assembly where she officiates on the committee in charge of education issues.
Martin McGuinness son mentor
Meanwhile, Michelle O’Neill got married and gave birth to her second child. His political career continues. In 2011, she was first appointed Minister of Agriculture, then Minister of Health by Martin McGuinness, who then shared power with Ian Paisley of the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party).
→ MAINTENANCE. After the elections, Northern Ireland “must reform its institutions”
At the 2017 funeral in the city of Derry of her mentor McGuinness, she helped carry his coffin. The party then in full overhaul wants to change its image and make a clean sweep of the violent past which still associates it in the collective imagination with the IRA. Who better than a woman, young, with undeniable charisma, with a recognized work force, to take the reins of Sinn Féin? Michelle O’Neill becomes the leader of the party in Ulster in 2017, while in the Republic of Ireland, the southern part of the island, in the same strategy of renewal, Sinn Féin appoints another woman, Mary Lou McDonald, to represent him in the Dublin Parliament. A profitable strategy, since the latter could also become the next taoiseach (Prime Minister).