Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald was interviewed on RTÉ ONE’s Prime Time last week by Fran McNulty. He wanted to know was Sinn Féin holding data on people that they shouldn’t have been.
“The assertion appears to be” Mary Lou told Fran, “that Sinn Féin are gathering information for nefarious purposes. Not so – the information we hold is totally legal.”
She went on to explain to Fran that elections matter, and that’s why activists in all parties gather information on voters all the time – in the old days on scribbled bits of paper, today using sophisticated data bases.
Fran then moved on to the killing of Mountbatten,and whether Mary Lou had apologised to anyone for it. Mary Lou could have mentioned (but didn’t ) that she was ten at the time; instead she noted that the Mountbatten killing happened during a conflict, a war in which many people were injured and which provoked an ocean of tears. Fran wanted to know did she think the man who detonated the bomb on Mountbatten’s boat was wrong. Again, Mary Lou widened it out to the suffering that included many other days as well as that day. It was deeply saddening and hurtful, and war generally was wrong. “If that helps you” Mary Lou concluded, like a doctor with a slightly hypochondriacal teenager.
Then Fran went on to a border poll. Wasn’t it fuelling tensions, this constant border poll talk? Well no, Mary Lou explained. It’d be irresponsible not to plan for the future. The preparation for a border poll needed to start now, so that with Irish unity, we could put an end to “a bitter, long conflict”.
On RTÉ’s Late Late Show last Friday, Ryan Tubridy interviewed Sinn Féin’s vice-president, Michelle O’Neill. One surprise – Michelle was born in Cork, where her father was working at the time. Ryan noted that at 16, Michelle became pregnant – “with child, naturally”. The SF vice-president smiled patiently at this odd comment.
Then Ryan wanted to know if she agreed with President Michael D Higgins about the horrors of separate education for Catholics and Protestants. Michelle mentioned parental choice and the mistake it would be to hang the North’s problems around the neck of education.
Ryan then wondered if Michelle would be for dumping the tricolour and the anthem in a united Ireland? No, she told him, she’d favour keeping both; but she’d also favour discussion of those things and many others as we move towards a New Ireland. Ryan wanted to know if Michelle didn’t “fear the loyalist gunmen”, talking like that. She said there was no room for guns or violence from any side.
Michelle speaks more quickly than Mary Lou, but both women waltzed gracefully through the sometimes daft questions RTÉ interviewers come up with. Then again, when compared to the Late Late lunacy of Gay Byrne’s time, RTÉ presenters have made reasonable progress. Keep going, guys – still loads of room for improvement.
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