SF rallies spark anger as party claims to be recruiting new blood
Rivals taunt Sinn Féin on ‘Nuremberg’ style events
SINN Féin is planning to use its highly controversial series of rallies to rebuild the party infrastructure and secure much-needed new candidates for the next election.
The party will be holding protest rallies around the country, demanding a place in government.
The party’s plans have provoked fury amongst their political opponents with Simon Harris noting that Sinn Féin would ‘be better spending time trying to actually form their socialist republican government or tell the truth if they can’t do so’.
Senior Fine Gael figure Helen McEntee also weighed in, saying the election is over and Sinn Féin should now spend ‘the next two weeks trying to form a government’.
Former justice minister Alan Shatter said the rallies had ‘no valid role in our democracy’.
Another minister warned: ‘There is a touch of the Nuremberg rallies surrounding all this; it is on the edge of being sinister.’ Sinn Féin sources dismissed their opponents’ claims, stating: ‘This is not about getting into government; this is about the next election.’
The party is already urgently hunting down candidates to avoid being caught short by a snap election. In the wake of disappointing local elections, Sinn Féin was as surprised as the political establishment by its subsequent success.
One senior source noted: ‘We now find ourselves in the curious position where we are over-extended with votes and under-extended with candidates. There are huge swathes of the country where there is no enemy, but we have no troops. We need to repair our supply lines and get soldiers in fast.’
The decision to run a relatively small number of candidates was heavily influenced by a disastrous local election campaign in 2019 in which the party’s council base was almost halved from 159 to 81 seats. A Sinn Féin source warned: ‘This was not the plan. You build from the council up. After 2019 we went into retrenchment mod: we hold what we have.’
Sinn Féin did have some by-election success last November, but the source said that by that stage ‘it was too late to change tack.’ They added: ‘We need new blood from outside the council route; the older parties may be having a postelection rest, but we are staying in campaigning mode.’
It is believed that in this year’s election, Sinn Féin left up to 11 seats behind based on its popular vote and its distribution. These include the leader’s own constituency, Dublin Central, where, at 35.7%, Mary Lou McDonald secured a Bertie-style vote. Even this was surpassed by Dessie Ellis, who won 44.4% of the vote in Dublin North-West.
One Sinn Féin grandee said: ‘On those figures even Mary Lou is going to have to agree to a running mate.’ The grandee was referring to a minor Fianna Fáil functionary who despite polling less than a thousand votes in 2007 was elected on Bertie Ahern’s transfers.
It is expected that in Dublin South Central, the controversial senator Máire Devine will be running next time, while Sinn Féin apparatchik and former Dublin lord mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha is expected to be brought in to run with Denise Mitchell (21,344 votes) in Dublin Bay North. The source added: ‘We are looking at Fingal. At 15,792, Louise O’Reilly would in a five-seater have a good run at bringing in a second seat.’
And they warned: ‘David Cullinane, at 20,549 votes, will not be running a lone furrow in Waterford; his price for “up the IRA” will be a running mate. We will be looking to take out the new Independent [Matt] Shanahan before he gets his feet too far under the table.’
Such now is the level of bullishness in the party that strategists are considering a reprise of the 2016 three-candidate strategy for Donegal in the next election.
In Laois-Offaly, figures within the party are canvassing a rapprochement with Carol Nolan, who left over Repeal the Eighth.
One source noted: ‘We are also looking urgently at rebuilding in Wicklow. If we could regain the infrastructure there, we would be in the running for two.’ They added: ‘Sinn Féin must re-imagine itself as a two-seat party in four- and fiveseat constituencies. We must stop being satisfied with single-seat hit and runs, so to speak, and follow the template set by [Eoin] Ó Broin in [Dublin] Mid-West.’
‘This is about the next election’ ‘Cullinane won’t run lone furrow’