I was at the Feile’s interview by Andrée Murphy of Mary Lou McDonald a couple of nights ago. It wasn’t what you might call a gouging interview – Andrée (like the audience) treated Mary Lou with much respect. Both of them Rathgar girls, dontchaknow.
Andrée didn’t ask her if she planned to run for President of Ireland, but it seemed pretty clear to me, taking the intervieiw in its totality, that there wasn’t a chance Mary Lou might leave the helm of Sinn Féin. She was more focused on the people of the North being able to run as presidential candidates (cue Mary McAleese) than who the candidates might be and whether Sinn Féin might run a candidate.
It’s not easy interviewing someone you admire, and Andrée clearly admires Mary Lou; but there were times when I wanted a few more probing questions to be faced up to. Mary Lou talked optimistically about a presidential candidate being supported by all Left parties, but she didn’t mention Aontu, who have a similar attitude to Irish unity and republicanism. It would be more than sad if Labour/bread-and-butter attitudes were to dominate the reunification question.
One question that wasn’t addressed when Mary Lou repeated her 2030 deadline for a reunification referendum. We don’t want to make the Brexit mistake, as she said: what she didn’t say was what structures,forums would be established so matters such as housing,health and education – not to mention Britishness – would be clarified and accommodations reached. We need these structures BADLY. There’s less than half a year before 2025 is over and 2030 looms large.
But make no mistake about it: Mary Lou is a consummate politician. She speaks clearly and forcefully, she doesn’t need notes when outlining the complexity of any given issue, and she sounded as fresh in the final minutes of the interview as she was in the first few minutes. She looks sharp, she is sharp, and you feel there ain’t nobody going to get away with nothin’ while this woman is at the SF wheel.
Things have certainly changed since I was a nipper. Or to be more accurate, a teenager. The failed northern state was a gerrymandered basket case. The free state president a partitionist lackey, or lickspittle. (What a great word, it seemed to appear in AP/RN every week.) Now, the President of SF says we have to set out the benefits of Irish unity. Things have changed all right. No more shootings, bombings, internment, rubber bullets and collusion. Thank God. Long may it continue.
Aontu had people acting as election agents up here at recent elections who spent decades writing anti SF and anti republican letters to the newspapers .People without a republican bone in their bodies whose religious conservatism chimes with that of Aontu and who see them as a vehicle for spoiling SF’s chances. A party who cannot elect a single councillor in the North but who manage to out poster every other candidate in the areas they contest elections. They are obviously well funded but by whom remains a mystery.