South Leitrim teenager Hannah Canning beams as she pushes open the doors of the RDS exhibition centre in Dublin and takes in her surroundings.
Accompanied by her father, it is the Leaving Cert student’s first visit to a Sinn Féin ardfheis.
With a black canvas bag promoting integrated education slung over her shoulder – picked up at a Northern lobbyist’s stand – the softly spoken 17 year old hopes to one day represent the party.
“I’m here because I’ve an interest in politics and what it can do for young people, for housing and education,” she says. “I want to go to college in Dublin to study politics and history but run for election at home in about eight or nine years’ time.
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“I’d like to hear everyone speak today about what they think the future holds for politics – and what we can do for a united Ireland,” she said.
“Sinn Féin hasn’t really got their chance and their voice in politics. Everything’s been Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. I just think it’s time for change.”
By Saturday mid-morning, a surge of rain-sodden visitors begins to fill up the centre’s vast Industries Hall.
Queues line up for pains au chocolat and lattes at one end of the Tudor stone-walled building – at the other end, business is slow on a stall selling Christmas jumpers emblazoned with We wish you a United Ireland.
Farrah Koutteineh (25) and her friend Latifa Abouchakra (32) boarded a 6am coach from Belfast and are looking for a hot drink.
The pair met through Palestinian activist work in London.
“Have you guys seen Michelle yet?” Abouchakra, a trade unionist and teacher, excitedly asks us ahead of the Sinn Féin vice-president’s noon speech.
“We love Michelle O’Neill. She’s very down-to-earth, very relatable. She says it like it is,” adds Koutteineh, who moved from London to Belfast in June and works for a centre monitoring refugee rights.
Both women support Sinn Féin because they feel its campaign for a united Ireland mirrors the “struggle for a free Palestine”.
“My mum is from Derry and my dad is from Palestine, and I recently became a member of Sinn Féin,” says Koutteineh.
“I think it’s important to come out and support a united Ireland, it’s the only party that really does that, in the same way it’s important for me to have a free Palestine.”
Aboucharkra adds: “As a Palestinian, I’m very interested in politics of course and the international solidarity for us that exists in Ireland. It’s so much stronger here than I’ve ever felt it anywhere else.”
A television screen streaming live speeches from the venue’s adjacent Shelbourne Hall is getting little attention as former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams enters the room and is asked to pose for selfies.
For 19-year-old psychology student Imani Carty – whose mother is from Madagascar and father is Irish – the change in party leadership is important:
“We’re moving on through generations, and the change from Gerry Adams to Mary Lou McDonald is very symbolic.
“I think they’re [Sinn Féin] looking for young people’s interest, older generations too, as opposed to a single close-minded perspective that maybe other parties would have. So that’s very appealing to me.
“The housing crisis is completely crazy, I have family members affected by it. I think this is the only party that actually cares about it. That’s a big thing,” Carty says.
“And obviously a united Ireland is something that also very interesting to me, I hope that we’ll move towards it soon.
“Coming from another country that’s been colonised – Madagascar by France – it’s quite painful to see that one of my countries is still colonised by Britain.”
The student said she accepts the Republican party has “negative connotations” through its association with the IRA.
“But I think it was a reaction to the violence of the British; I think they were fighting for their rights, fighting for their country. I don’t think the party should necessarily be associated with the IRA, but I think it’s important to recognise the history,” she adds.
Carty is accompanied by her friend and fellow student, Travis Delahoyde (20) from Dublin. They met at the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands.
Describing himself as someone from a working-class background, he believes his community has been underrepresented by Government. “I think that needs to change because a government should be all-inclusive,” he says.
“With land being sold off to private investors, we’re seeing the culmination of these issues of under-representation, particularly in relation to housing. Mortgages are difficult to obtain.”
Some younger Sinn Féin delegates are reluctant to speak – apologising before referring me to the party press office – but west Belfast man Caoimhín McCann (22) doesn’t hold back.
Growing up in the one of the most deprived areas of the city, his interest in republican politics began in his early teens. In February, he became a councillor and is chairs the party’s youth wing.
“You’re not allowed to join Sinn Féin until you’re 16. As soon as I had the opportunity I jumped right in,” the Queens University graduate says.
Asked how he sells a united Ireland to his unionist counterparts, McCann says he often debates the healthcare issue with a young loyalist activist who he’s “good friends” with.
Many unionists often single out the costly healthcare system in the South as a reason to oppose Irish unity, when Northerners can access free NHS care (albeit with the worst waiting lists in the UK).
“The point I make is that I don’t believe the Tories are ideologically wedded to the NHS as there is so much privatisation. We want to move towards a more socialised style of health,” explains McCann.
“I want to steal that great British ideal of an NHS and implement here in Ireland and make it better; care that is free at the point of delivery across North and South.”
He adds: “Young people see Sinn Féin as a vehicle for change in Ireland – that’s social change, environmental change and economic change.
“Of course I want to see a united Ireland as well. I don’t think partition has served this part of the world particularly well, on either side of the Border.”
