‘FIRST MINISTER FOR ALL’: O’NEILL READY FOR ROLE
FROM a background steeped in republicanism, Michelle O’Neill has risen to the cusp of making history as the North’s first nationalist first minister.
When MLAs gather at Stormont today, 47-year-old Ms O’Neill will finally be nominated to the position she became entitled to by leading Sinn Féin to victory in the 2022 Assembly elections.
Her ascent has been delayed by the DUP’s boycott of the powersharing institutions.
Since the collapse of Stormont, Ms O’Neill has been the face of her party’s long campaign to have the Assembly restored, repeatedly promoted as a ‘First Minister for all’.
When she appeared with party leader Mary Lou McDonald in Stormont this week, after the DUP agreed to end the political impasse, the two women were quick to point out the huge political significance of the moment, stating that their ultimate strategy of Irish unity is within ‘touching distance’.
Ms O’Neill and Ms McDonald have forged a formidable partnership. Ms McDonald leads Sinn Féin’s electoral charge in the Republic, while Ms O’Neill has grown in prominence as the Stormont leader. Together, their public appearances are often cheerful and personable, a departure from the men-in-grey-suits image of politics in past years.
While the symbolism of having a republican First Minister at Stormont will not go unnoticed, the reality is that the First and Deputy First Minister posts hold equal authority.
Ms O’Neill knows this better than most, having previously served as Deputy First Minister alongside the DUP’s Arlene Foster and Paul Givan when they occupied the office.
Ms O’Neill and her new team of ministerial colleagues will be tasked with dealing with a budget crisis and crumbling public services.
Born Michelle Doris on January 10, 1977 in Fermoy, Co. Cork, Ms O’Neill was raised in Clonoe in rural Co. Tyrone in a family of prominent republicans.
Her father, Brendan, was a former IRA prisoner who later became a Sinn Féin councillor in Dungannon. Her uncle, Paul Doris, was president of republican fundraising group Noraid.
She had her daughter Saoirse at the age of 16 and her own mother gave up work so she could continue her education.
In a 2021 interview, Ms O’Neill spoke about the difficulties of being a teenage mother from a Catholic background.
She said: ‘You were nearly made to feel girls like you can’t be at school, that kind of a thing.’
She had her second child, Ryan, five years later. Last year she became a grandmother.
She was first elected to the Assembly in 2007, alongside party veterans Mr McGuinness and Francie Molloy, as representatives for Mid Ulster.
Mr Molloy, now the area’s MP, said of her: ‘She is not one of these people who rushes into commentary on things, she would be a good listener and sit back and observe and take account of things, so she would not be a reactionary sort of person.’
Ms O’Neill soon became Sinn Féin’s Stormont spokeswoman for health and sat on the education committee. Her rapid rise within the party continued when she was appointed Agriculture Minister in 2011.
In 2015, she took on the highprofile role of Health Minister, where one of her first actions was to lift the lifetime ban on gay men donating blood.
By the time Sinn Féin collapsed the political institutions in 2017, in protest at the DUP’s handling of a bungled green energy scheme, then deputy first minister Mr McGuinness was in poor health.
Following Mr McGuinness’s death later that year, she became Sinn Féin’s Stormont leader and the following year was elected vice president. She led her party in the talks process which led to the restoration of Stormont in 2020.
In January of that year, Ms O’Neill became Stormont’s Deputy First Minister, months before the pandemic struck. The powersharing executive was to be in place for just two years before the DUP collapsed it again in protest at postBrexit trading arrangements.
In 2022, Sinn Féin, with Ms O’Neill at the forefront, made history when it became the biggest party in the North during the Assembly elections for the first time.