In a move that would have been thought impossible perhaps a decade ago, Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, today will have its first member of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin as its First Minister, Michelle O'Neill. Sinn Féin's political goal is the reunification of Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland to its south, something they have been fighting for since the end of World War I. From the Washington Post:
"O’Neill, 47, will make history as Northern Ireland’s first republican leader, from a party that wants north and south to come together, someday, as a single country.
'It represents truly historic change in the north and across the island of Ireland,' she said in a statement to The Washington Post.
Calling it a 'good day for democracy,' O’Neill noted that the restoration of government 'respects the result' of the May 2022 election — when Sinn Féin for the first time won the largest share of seats in the assembly and the right to hold the first minister job under Northern Ireland’s delicate power-sharing agreement.
But O’Neill also emphasized that she will be 'a First Minister for All' — that means unionists and republicans, Protestants and Catholics, those who want a 'United Ireland' and those who want to remain 'British Forever' (alongside a growing number in the middle ground)." (our emphasis)
As a mark of how head spinning this is, O'Neill's father and two cousins were in the Irish Republican Army, fighting against the Northern Ireland government and British soldiers stationed there years ago. Thirty years of bloody conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics, which was referred to there as "the troubles," largely ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement as a result of Clinton Administration diplomacy.
(photo: O'Neill arriving to be sworn in as First Minister. Getty Images)
