Michelle O’Neill, 47, becomes Northern Ireland’s first nationalist leader

Michelle O’Neill hailed her appointment as “historic” shortly after it was confirmed.

Belfast, UK:

Michelle O’Neill made history on Saturday when she became the first nationalist leader of the Northern Ireland provincial government, representing a new generation of progressive Irish Republicans.

The 47-year-old Sinn Féin politician has been waiting patiently to become first minister since becoming the UK’s largest party following the May 2022 election.

O’Neill’s immediate priority is to address the budget crisis and faltering public services, and his family is very familiar with the dark days of sectarian conflict that began in the 1960s.

Her father was imprisoned for being a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), while her cousin was murdered by members of Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) regiment.

But O’Neill is part of a generation that came of age in politics after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, also known as the Belfast Agreement, which brought peace and promised to be a “first minister for everyone”.

She paid tribute to British head of state Elizabeth II after her death in 2022 and attended the coronation of King Charles III.

Both of these were unheard of when Sinn Féin was the political wing of the IRA.

O’Neill hailed her appointment as “historic” shortly after it was confirmed.

“For my parents and grandparents’ generation, this day would have been unthinkable,” she told Northern Ireland lawmakers.

Compared

O’Neill’s left-wing liberalism, charming appearance and political slickness have won over young voters who are angry at the lack of stable jobs and housing since the 2008 financial crisis.

It also stands in stark contrast to the male-dominated, doctrinaire political climate of the violent era and the current union leadership in Northern Ireland.

Rather than focusing on the republican dream of a united Ireland, O’Neill’s party has spent the parliamentary elections emphasizing policies to combat soaring inflation and encourage stability after the shock of Brexit.

O’Neill was born on January 10, 1977 in County Cork, southern Ireland.

Her father, Brendan Doris, was jailed at the height of the Troubles for joining the IRA paramilitary group and later became a Sinn Féin MP.

British authorities believe her 21-year-old cousin Tony Doris was involved in a brigade plot to assassinate a senior security force member in 1991. He was killed when the car he was traveling in was ambushed by the SAS.

Another cousin, IRA volunteer Gareth Malachy Doris, was wounded in a firefight in 1997.

After training as an accounting technician, O’Neill turned to politics, working as an adviser to France Molloy, a Sinn Féin politician in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

After winning elections to the devolved legislative bodies in 2007, she became agriculture and rural development minister in 2011 and health minister in 2016.

It was here that she promoted her liberal philosophy and lifted Northern Ireland’s ban on gay men donating blood.

In 2017, O’Neill became leader of Sinn Féin in the North following the resignation of veteran republican and former IRA commander Martin McGuinness.

Symbolism

In 2020, she became deputy first minister in the Belfast administration, uneasily sharing power with the DUP before the party withdrew over protests over a post-Brexit trade deal with the EU.

She lost that position in February 2022 when the administration collapsed. Now she will be given the valuable post, with a union member as her deputy.

Although the First Minister and Deputy First Minister have equal powers, it has huge symbolic significance for Northern Ireland and reflects the changing demographics of the Catholic majority.

The Democratic Unionist Party or other unionist forces have controlled power in Northern Ireland since it became a majority-Protestant, pro-British state in 1921, when the rest of Ireland achieved self-government from Britain.

Nationalist parties split south of the border during Ireland’s civil war, but Sinn Féin also now leads Irish polls after coming within a whisker of seizing power in Dublin in 2020.

Sinn Féin chairwoman Mary Lou McDonald said the deal to restore parliament and appoint O’Neill as first minister meant a united Ireland was now “within reach”.

O’Neill was married to Paddy O’Neill until their separation in 2014, with whom he has two children. A grandmother since last year, she attributes her strength to being a teenage mom.

“I know what it’s like to be in a difficult position, I know what it’s like to struggle, I know what it’s like to go to school, have a baby at home, prepare for exams,” she told the Belfast Telegraph.

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