Northern Ireland has a Sinn Fein leader. It's a milestone moment.
As Michelle O'Neill walked down the marble steps in Northern Ireland parliament building on the outskirts of Belfast on Saturday she seemed confident and calm. She smiled as applause erupted from supporters on the balcony. Only the seriousness of her gaze conveyed the gravity of the moment.
The political party she represents, Sinn Fein, was formed by the decades-long, bloody struggle of Irish nationalists in the area who dreamed of reuniting with the Republic of Ireland and reversing the 1921 partition that kept Northern Ireland under British rule .
Now, for the first time, a Sinn Fein politician will hold the highest political office in Northern Ireland, a milestone for the party and for the wider region as a power-sharing government has been restored. The role of Prime Minister has previously always been filled by a unionist politician committed to remaining part of the United Kingdom.
“I am honored to stand here as Prime Minister,” Ms O'Neill said, first in Irish and then in English, after officially accepting nomination for the post. “We mark a moment of equality and a moment of progress.”
The idea of a nationalist Prime Minister in Northern Ireland, let alone that of Sinn Fein, a party with historic ties to the Irish Republican Army, was once unthinkable.
But the story of Sinn Fein's transformation – from a fringe party that was once the political wing of the IRA, to a political force that won the most seats in the 2022 Northern Ireland elections – is also the story of a changing political landscape and the results of the 1998 election. Good Friday Agreement, which ended the decades-long sectarian conflict known as the Troubles.
“It's certainly very important symbolically,” says Katy Hayward, professor of political sociology at Queen's University Belfast. “It tells us exactly how far Northern Ireland has come, and in many ways the success of the Good Friday Agreement and the use of democratic and peaceful means to achieve cooperation.”
It is not yet clear what a Sinn Fein prime minister will mean for the hopes of those seeking to reunite the island after a century of separation. Although Mary Lou McDonald, the president of Sinn Fein, who leads the opposition in the Irish parliament, said so last week the prospect of a united Ireland was now “touchingly remote”.”, experts think this is still a long way off.
For now, the area's two main political forces – unionists and nationalists – are linked in the power-sharing arrangement set out in the Good Friday Agreement.
That arrangement had collapsed over how Northern Ireland's political powers see themselves post-Brexit.
Northern Ireland's leading unionist party, the Democratic Unionists, quit government in 2022 in the wake of Britain's departure from the European Union, which had placed a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom Kingdom. Wanting to secure ties with Britain, the DUP feared the maritime border would be the first step in driving them apart.
The boycott of the assembly ended last week after the British government agreed to reduce customs checks and strengthen Northern Ireland's position. within the United Kingdom and hand over 3.3 billion pounds, about $4 billion, in financial sweeteners.
Because it had the most unionist seats at the 2022 election, the DUP had the right to appoint the deputy prime minister on Saturday.
The roles of Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are officially equal, and neither can act alone to prevent one community from dominating the other. “People like to say here, one person can't order paper clips without the other person's approval,” Ms Hayward said. But the titles and the fact that the prime minister's role reflects the largest number of seats create an idea of 'first among equals'.
And Ms O'Neill's appointment has inevitably brought to the fore conversations about the prospect of Northern Ireland one day reuniting with the Republic of Ireland.
Experts said that while a rising Sinn Fein could give further impetus to that cause, the party's rise was more a reflection of the rifts that emerged between unionist parties after Britain left the European Union, rather than a widespread wave of Irish nationalism. Current opinion polls show that the majority of the island's population does not support unification.
“They have made the prospect look realistic, and Brexit has helped because there has been some increase in support,” said Jonathan Tonge, a professor of politics at the University of Liverpool who specializes in Northern Ireland and who has conducted opinion polls on the issue. analyzed extensively.
“There's still a long way to go,” he said, adding that with elections in the Republic of Ireland in 2025 and the potential for a Sinn Fein government there, “it's huge in those terms.”
He noted that a quarter of a century ago, few would have envisaged a Sinn Fein prime minister.
Part of that success is due to Ms O'Neill and Ms McDonald, who have helped change the perception of the party.
“These two women do not have the baggage of membership or close ties to the IRA,” said Robert Savage, a professor at Boston College and an expert in Irish history. “They are younger, articulate, popular and astute in addressing the concerns, especially of younger people.”
Ms O'Neill, 47, comes from a prominent republican family in Cork, a county on Ireland's south coast. Her father, who served time in prison for being an IRA member, later became a Sinn Fein politician. But she has already made efforts to position herself as prime minister for everyone. She attended both Queen Elizabeth II's funeral and King Charles III's coronation last year.
Many trade unionists associate Sinn Fein with its IRA history, as do some nationalists and those who identify with neither group. But increasingly, especially among a younger cohort, the party has proven attractive.
In the Republic of Ireland, the party won the popular vote in 2020, in part by drawing attention to social issues such as housing and positioning itself as an alternative to the status quo. But its popularity did not extend to older voters who remember the violence of The Troubles.
In some ways, the growth of nationalist political representation is not surprising. Demography in Northern Ireland has changed significantly, with the slow erosion of the Protestant majority there attributed first to the Catholic Church's opposition to birth control and then to economic factors such as the decline in industrial jobs, which were mainly held by Protestants.
According to census figures, there were more Catholics than Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time in 2022. And Northern Ireland is no longer the binary society it once was. Decades of peace attracted newcomers, and like much of the world, the island has become increasingly secular. The labels Catholic and Protestant have remained an awkward shorthand for the cultural and political divide.
A large percentage of the population identifies as neither religion. And when it comes to political views, the largest group – 38 percent – consider themselves neither nationalist nor unionist. according to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey.
There has been one since Brexit Support for Northern Ireland remaining in Great Britain is disappearing and an increase in support for Irish unification. Many voters saw the break with Europe as economically damaging and threatening to cross-border relations, as the island had enjoyed decades in which EU membership helped cement peace.
For now, the restored government in Belfast has more pressing issues to deal with. Last month, tens of thousands of public sector workers walked out in protest over wages, in Northern Ireland's biggest strike in recent history. The healthcare sector is in crisis and the rising cost of living is being felt more acutely than anywhere else in the UK.
“Look what happened when people came around the table and worked to create peace here, and out of that came the Good Friday Agreement,” said Paul Doherty, a councilor representing west Belfast, one of the most deprived communities in Northern Ireland. “I think we need to rekindle the spirit of the 1990s.”