Sinn Féin held its first general election postmortem meeting on Monday, as the final seats were filled in a handful of remaining constituencies around the country.
The party has emerged with 39 seats, just two more than its 2020 haul. While advisers agreed a strategy on Monday to reach out to the Social Democrats and Labour, there was acceptance behind closed doors that another five-year spell beckons on the Opposition benches. At different levels of the party, there is intense disappointment and dismay that the promised land of government buildings has not materialised.
Naturally, this has given way to murmurings about the leadership of Mary Lou McDonald. Those conversations began after the party’s poor performance in this summer’s local elections. As the final results came in on Monday, some party members were already musing on who could potentially replace McDonald, with the names mentioned being: Matt Carthy, Pearse Doherty and Rose Conway-Walsh.
At the same time, however, there is a huge swell of support within the ranks for McDonald.
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“We are at our best when the press are kicking us,” said one Sinn Féin source on Monday. They added: “There were lessons to be learned from what happened in the local elections, and they have been learned.” The school of thought here is that the party tightened up its messaging and policies on key issues such as migration, health and housing.
Another source also admitted there is great disappointment across the Sinn Féin organisation, but that the blame internally is not being put on Mary Lou McDonald.
“We really hoped that we would be able to do it this time. But the campaign was not a disaster. A lot of us felt that we were seeing Mary Lou McDonald back to herself, back to doing what she does best.
“There was better cohesion in this campaign compared to the local elections. There was more support for candidates, better structures in place, help with things like social media. And by the end of the campaign there was a feeling that Mary Lou McDonald was back, that she was back in charge. There were people who had been whispering in different rooms about her, but they’ve gone quiet now.”
[ Election result is not the straightforward success story Sinn Féin are sellingOpens in new window ]
Some Sinn Féin members also told The Irish Times that they were unclear on whether Mary Lou McDonald wanted to continue as party leader, even if the organisation was rallying around her. But a senior Sinn Féin source said on Monday that it was absolutely her intention to continue in the role.
On Wednesday, the new and old members of the parliamentary party will meet and give their views about what should happen next. There appears to be a growing consensus that Sinn Féin needs to take an entirely different approach to the one the party has taken for the last four-and-a-half years in Opposition.
“We will knuckle down now and we will build again. We need to figure out what the message should be for the next few years. We’ll review every aspect of this election and look to the next one,” said one member.
Another well-known member said there was a feeling that the party would adopt a “more aggressive stance” over the coming years and operate as an opposition party rather than a government-in-waiting.
There is also expected to be a big programme of work around re-establishing Sinn Féin support in working-class areas and communities where the party lost out this summer, which will involve boots-on-the-ground community work.
Publicly, at least, the party was giving away very little on Monday.
“Our new increased parliamentary team will meet on Wednesday in Leinster House with Mary Lou McDonald and we will assess where we take things at that stage,” said housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin said.
After Sinn Féin’s overtures to Labour and the Social Democrats, they may also reach out to Independents – but few, if anyone, expects anything to come of these discussions and the initial reactions from within Labour and the Social Democrats were cool last night.
With an apparent dead end looming for Sinn Féin’s path to power, what comes next is quite uncertain.
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