Opinion

Jim Gibney: Election of Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill marks generational change for Sinn Féin

Jim Gibney
Jim Gibney Jim Gibney

Mary Lou McDonald slipped quietly into her seat unnoticed by the cameras and the over 2,000 people who had travelled from all over Ireland to attend Sinn Féin’s special ard fheis.

She nestled into her mother’s arms and was hugged and kissed by her family.

It was not the entrance the crowd wanted.

They wanted to carry her shoulder-high to the stage and deposit her at the podium where she would make her first speech as Sinn Féin’s newly elected president.

The crowd’s euphoric mood had earlier been apparent when Michelle O'Neill brought the auditorium to its feet with prolonged applause when she was elected vice-president of Sinn Féin.

Her public meteoric rise in Sinn Féin was caused by the sudden death of Martin McGuinness and she has more than proved her worth as a national leader with the challenges that came her way after Martin’s passing.

The ard fheis was a serious occasion. There was serious business to be done, yet the mood of the moment was jovial, celebratory, much like you would get at a family affair, such as a wedding, a christening, a landmark birthday or a long-awaited home-coming.

The 19th century revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg said: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”.

To the strains of Labi Siffre’s, 'Something Inside So Strong', we were dancing in our seats and in our heads and some were on their feet as the time ticked towards Mary Lou’s election.

No matter how much he wanted to, and he did many times, Gerry Adams could never slip into a room unnoticed.

Saturday was no different. A posse of cameras recorded his every move – a constant stream of well-wishers hugged, kissed and touched him in admiration and gratitude for his outstanding contribution and leadership of the freedom struggle. And wow, what a leadership that was.

But that is for another day.

Saturday was Mary Lou’s day. It was Michelle O Neill’s day. It was their generation’s day and Gerry especially knew that.

He did not sit on the stage nor join the victorious couple on it which ensured the limelight would be kept on them and on the future.

Instead, throughout the ard fheis he sat beside the much-loved Joe Reilly, councillor, former mayor of Navan, former political prisoner and veteran of some 50 years of struggle.

Joe was recently diagnosed with cancer.

Everywhere I looked on Saturday generational change smiled back.

And the face of the new generation, in their speeches, knew they stood on the “shoulders of giants” as they looked down from the podium to Gerry Adams and to Bernie McGuinness, Martin’s wife, who was accompanied by her son Fiachra, his wife Leona, and their daughter Cara, who sang beautifully for the ard fheis.

The MEP, Matt Carthy, said the spirit of Martin McGuinness lived on in her voice.

The new generation spoke with pride of remembering past heroes and of dark days of conflict, when IRA and Sinn Féin activists died, thereby ensuring that this generation of republicans did not have to.

I met a young man – one of this new generation – on my way (and his) to the Ard Fheis.

When his daddy was his age he was lying on a bunk bed in my cell in Crumlin Road jail gravely wounded by a British soldier. He became a highly respected republican leader and an invaluable peacemaker.

But for peace and the peaceful path to a united Ireland, this young man may well have followed his father to prison.

For that alone this new generation and indeed all the people of Ireland and Britain have Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams to thank. We could not thank them enough.

They were products of their time – a violent and unjust society in the north rooted in partition, which itself was the product of a violent colonial history centuries old.

Mary Lou and Michelle are products of their time – a peaceful time with a legacy of the conflict which needs resolved but which need not impede building the future.

They helped build the party that is Sinn Féin today on the cusp of government, north and south, with a united Ireland in sight.

There for the winning. No better pair to win it.