During the Féile, Mary Lou McDonald sat down for an interview with Andrée Murphy, another Rathgar girl.
It was not an interrogation – quite the contrary — with Mary Lou being given lots of verbal elbow-room to talk about her political life.
How did she manage it all as a mother of very young children? How can any young mother find room for political involvement? “I think we all need wives,” was Mary Lou’s response, to much merriment among the packed audience.
Did we learn anything new from the talk? Well, Mary Lou highlighted the absurdity of someone like Mary McAleese being able to become President of Ireland but not cast a vote.
The people in the North clearly won’t get a vote in this year’s presidential election, which means we’ll have to wait at least seven years for voting rights as Irish people.
Yes, the President’s role is largely symboli,c but the fact that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael keep Northern voters at arm’s length shows how they fear any practical implementation of all-Ireland voting.
Which brings us to the question that several columnists have raised in recent days and Andrée Murphy, for whatever reason, didn’t ask: will Mary Lou run for President?
With a week being a long time in politics and more than twelve weeks before this year’s presidential vote, it’s dangerous to make predictions - but, what the hell, I’m going to make one anyway.
Mary Lou McDonald will not be running for President of Ireland. Yes, she led Sinn Féin into a general election in 2020 and missed out on seats proportionate to votes garnered by not having enough candidates.
Then in the November 2024 general election Sinn Féin did okay but with results far from what the opinion polls had for years been saying they would achieve. So you can see how some might mutter, “It’s time for someone else to take the Sinn Féin wheel and drive the party to success”. An interesting idea but it won’t happen.
"How can we prepare for a border poll in 2030? What would be the best forums in which people could meet and talk and agree and disagree until it’s clear what a proposed new Ireland would look like."
Sinn Féin have a formidable front-bench team: Pearse Doherty, Eoin Ó Broin, David Cullinane and more, but none of them compare with Mary Lou. In the Féile interview, she was articulate, realistic, good-humoured, firm, aspirational; in short, the complete package.
Were Sinn Féin to catapult her into Áras An Uachtaráin, it would of course be a visible symbol of the party’s strength. But to remove her from leading the Sinn Féin team in the Dáil would be a mistake. Impressive though other Sinn Féin front-benchers are, none of them compares with this formidable woman.
Mary Lou made one thing clear at the Féile talk: 2030 is the date by which she and her party aim to have a border poll. She was clear too on the amount of work that must be done in the intervening years so that people will know what it is they’re voting for.
Let’s not do a Brexit. When the border poll comes, people need to be clear-eyed about what they’re voting for (or against). Will it be a country with devolved government in all four provinces? Will Stormont still be part of that? How will the British identity of unionists be preserved if their link with the rest of the UK has been broken?
The key question that Andrée didn’t ask was, how can we prepare for a border poll in 2030? What would be the best forums in which people could meet and talk and agree and disagree until it’s clear what a proposed new Ireland would look like.
We living today have a huge opportunity to realise what so many generations of Irish people sought and failed to achieve: a self-governing country, free from British interference. Talking time is up. Now we need to act.
