It takes a lot to unite nationalists and unionists in the North on any political issue, but the genuine and widespread sense of annoyance at the southern political establishment’s response to the Sinn Féin surge has been something to behold.
Unionists, long conditioned to being preached to about the need to embrace powersharing and demonstrate maturity by moving beyond a fixation with the past, find themselves lining up with northern nationalists to cry foul at the breathtaking degree of hypocrisy that has characterised the reaction from a political class and commentariat yet to pick itself up after being floored by the electorate’s verdict three weeks ago.
Never mind that Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar made great play in calling for Sinn Féin to take their seats in Westminster and return to the Stormont Executive over the past few months and years. It now appears that Sinn Féin are to be deemed beyond the pale by both into perpetuity – though the inhabitants of that very pale clearly reached a different conclusion judging by Sinn Féin’s huge vote across the capital and Leinster.
Attitudes towards Sinn Féin and the North in general among many southern media voices and political figures betray a deep-rooted prejudice. The angry voices raging from the column inches in recent days would not be out of place in the infamous Sunday Independent editions of the 1990s, when demonising the Shinners, their voters and fellow travellers (including John Hume) was par for the course.
The sweeping ignorance of the North and its evolution over the past 25 years as a post-conflict society has meant the political development of Sinn Féin has not been fully appreciated.
Republican struggle
The bloody and brutal civil war of 1922 and 1923 led directly to the creation of the political parties that would dominate the Republic for the century to come, and the leaderships of both parties remained firmly anchored in that tumultuous period for several generations. Fine Gael would have to await the tenure of James Dillon as leader from 1959 and, for Fianna Fáil, the onset of the Lynch era in 1966, for party leaders not directly linked with active military involvement in republican struggle.
In contrast, the leadership of Sinn Féin in 2020, a mere 22 years after the Belfast Agreement, represents a clean break with the conflict generation. Eoin Ó Broin, Pearse Doherty and Mary Lou McDonald are a formidable frontbench team, and few will be convinced that they are willing to take their lead on the significant policy challenges facing the southern Irish state by figures, “shadowy” or otherwise, not renowned for expertise on matters pertaining to housing, homelessness and health.
The IRA is long gone, as anyone living in the traditional republican heartlands of the North will testify
People aren’t stupid. The IRA is long gone, as anyone living in the traditional republican heartlands of the North will testify. Modern Sinn Féin is about winning and exercising political power, North and South, with a clear game plan to kickstart planning and preparation for Irish unity alongside proving its worth in any prospective coalition government involving the party in the future.
This is nothing new. Sinn Féin ministers have served in the Stormont Executive throughout this century, making and taking decisions which have been at times unpopular as well as controversial, provoking criticisms from one-time allies and enemies alike.
Compromise deals
Before the Renewable Heating Incentive crisis precipitated the collapse of Stormont in 2017, possibly the most contentious decision taken by a Northern Ireland executive minister was when the then Sinn Féin minister for health, Bairbre de Brun, chose Enniskillen over Omagh as the site for the regional acute hospital in 2002. It was a lose/lose scenario for the minister, one instantly recognisable as such to any politician having held a health post in any administration. The point is that Sinn Féin ultimately did not baulk at taking the tough decision and, over a period of several election cycles, rode out the storm in Tyrone.
The party's ministers have taken many challenging decisions and hammered out compromise deals with the DUP and other parties
In the intervening years, the party’s ministers have taken many challenging decisions and hammered out compromise deals with the DUP and other parties in the all-party Executive which gives the lie to the idea that Sinn Féin is either not serious about governing or not capable of finding a way of working effectively in a coalition government that will involve compromise on pre-election positions as articulated. Indeed, any serious southern observers of northern politics will know that Stormont’s collapse for three years was primarily due to the republican party losing the confidence of the broad nationalist base in the North due to its tendency to turn the other cheek in the face of DUP aggression as it vainly pursued a policy of keeping the Stormont show on the road at all costs.
Dismissing Sinn Féin as merely a populist party, an Irish Syriza, is a fundamental mistake and misreading of the reasons for the party’s advance. Sinn Féin is the 21st-century face of a progressive Irish left and, through its all-Ireland and Republican roots, is demonstrably better-placed to prove resilient in that space as a credible competitor for the hearts and minds of the Irish electorate than Labour could ever manage.
Chris Donnelly is a primary school principal and a former Sinn Féin member and election candidate. He writes regularly about politics in Northern Ireland