Sinn Féin will remain a prisoner to the past until McDonald jettisons the Adams legacy

THE general election gun has been locked and loaded and Sinn Féin is likely to be the fastest out of the trenches if past form is anything to go by.

Its Ard Fheis last weekend saw a seismic shift in the Irish political landscape.

The transformation of the party is the biggest single leadership challenge Mary Lou McDonald will face.

Gerry Adams has said he will not lead the party into the next election, the prospect of his visage glowering from lamp posts across the country would have a major impact on voters.

So if it is serious about becoming a party of government in the Republic, then Ms McDonald has to begin the decommissioning of the Adams legacy.

This entails putting beyond use such an outdated arsenal that embraced a denial of the past, a blinkered nationalist politics, a Belfast-centric leadership and iron command structure that crushes dissent.

Every political leader is a product of their times, their support base and their family background.

Mr Adams was a product of another era in the heyday of the provisional IRA, an era of violent bigoted sectarian strife in the six counties.

He grew up with an abusive father in the slipstream of violent republicanism. His 34-year tenure as leader of his party eventually saw its transition from paramilitarism, through the ‘Armalite in one hand, and the ballot paper in the other’ towards democratic politics and electoral success.

But first things first: the provisional IRA must take primary responsibility for 3,500 deaths over 30 years.

Mr Adams’s constant lies about not being a Belfast IRA commander, and his refusal to show remorse for murder, are indelible stains on his personal integrity.

He’s no Nelson Mandela. No one can deny the current critical mass of Sinn Féin with 23 TDs, four MEPs, seven MPs, 27 MLAs and 250 councillors. It roundly trounced the SDLP in the North and Labour in the Republic as the market leader in their respective arenas.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 represents the Hume/Adams’s greatest achievement. Of course there were other co-authors.

Historians will doubtlessly differ over the collective works of Mr Adams’s leadership of Sinn Féin.

The future now belongs to Ms McDonald. She must confront the fact that Sinn Féin’s potential progress as a modernising liberal democratic left-wing political party came to a shuddering stop in 2017.

It must decide: Is it a cult movement or a democratic political party?

Collapsing the Northern Ireland power-sharing Executive early this year over renewable energy maladministration was followed by an obdurate refusal to compromise with the DUP.

Stalling the ball over the Irish language and gay rights seems to be part of a grand strategy moving towards exploiting Brexit as a lever to pursue a Border poll for a united Ireland.

Along the way the divisions caused by polarised politics will swallow up the North’s middle ground. This paves the way for a triumph for tribal sectarian headcounts.

To deliberately boycott the Northern Ireland ministerial representation in the context of momentous political change with Brexit is unspeakably cynical.

To not even consider reviewing the abstentionism of Westminster MPs when they could hold the arithmetical balance of power on Brexit suggests the party is still a prisoner to the past.

Election or not, Sinn Féin has little prospect of growing beyond its hardcore nationalist base if it stays in denial mode.

The mandate of

representation comes with obligations in the corridors of power which it can not just ignore.

With winning seats comes a responsibility to use power.

Placing elected public representatives ahead of shadowy backroom republican powerbrokers is Mary Lou’s first culture challenge.

Exercising leadership means shifting control from Belfast to Dublin, if you want to increase TDs.

The hidden, perhaps insurmountable, dilemma SF faces is the chasm that’s deepened from almost a century of partition on the island.

The lifestyle and ethos gulf between the North and the Republic for succeeding generations is perhaps a greater divide than that between SF and the DUP. Millennial taxpayers in the Republic have no appetite to take on the €10bn net costs of the North’s public sectordependent economy. Next year is the 20th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. The Republic’s voters gave a massive referendum endorsement to principles of “consent” within the North and each jurisdiction’s right to self-determination. Sadly, tragically, two decades later sectarian bitterness thrives. When SF has a southern leader it must follow that the existing fulcrum of authority will also shift.

All decision making is currently visibly wielded by the Ard Comhairle, with the Ard Fheis rubber stamping.

Michelle O’Neill’s anointing as Martin McGuinness’s successor revealed the real power base.

Historically, SF was subservient to the Army Council.

IF the overriding priority is electoral progress to the point of coalition government in the Dáil, policies on Brexit, abortion and the Irish language will reflect contemporary popular opinion in the Republic.

Here’s the real rock it could founder on. A blinkered tribal Northern minority nationalist mentality isn’t

compatible with a futuristic European liberal pluralism, beyond 2020.

Mary Lou was reared near Orwell road, Rathgar, Dublin. A Trinity College and University of Limerick graduate, she joined Fianna Fáil in 1997 and was elected as a populist Dublin SF MEP in 2004.

Her personal brand and media style is trendy – friendly, but also fearsome. However, it’s her blind loyalty to Adams and the party that secures her the prize.

McDonald, as a female leader, must confront rather than silently acquiesce to SF internal intolerance of dissent in relation to sexual abuse, bullying or harassment of members/ councillors.

Recent opinion polls indicate the party declining consecutively from 18pc to 14pc. Its growth prospects in the Republic depend on cannibalising socialist seats in cities and repelling the recovery of Fianna Fáil.

Some 1,233,424 voters elected 113 Fine Gael/Labour TDs in 2011, at the depth of the crash. Disaffected FG/ Labour voters since then have looked for a new home.

The ultimate victor in all elections is the party or person who best captures the “change” mantra mojo.

The principal contest in the context of “change” lies between Micheál Martin and Ms McDonald.

But first things first: Mary Lou McDonald won’t succeed unless she’s prepared to jettison Gerry Adams. If he remains the backseat driver, SF will continue going around in circles in its own cul-de-sac.