New Sinn Féin boss same as the old one?

FOR quite a considerable time, it was clear that Mary Lou McDonald was the anointed successor to Gerry Adams as president of Sinn Féin.

Even the most casual observers could see in recent years how the party hierarchy was preparing her to take over the leadership. The logic seemed obvious. Quite apart from the fact Mr Adams had been at the helm for over 30 years, awkward questions about his past have remained.

According to the accepted wisdom, a middle-class mother with no links to terrorism will almost certainly appeal to a broader range of voters. Ms McDonald herself certainly seems confident that this will be the case, given her predictions that the party will double its number of Dáil seats at the next general election. But she has already caused the widespread raising of eyebrows twice since assuming control.

Yesterday, in an interview on Sky News, she described Leo Varadkar as ‘smarmy’. That she chose to refer to the Taoiseach in those terms less than 24 hours into her new job was unexpected enough in itself. Perhaps even more surprising is that she did so on a British television channel that is widely available internationally.

Meanwhile, she closed her speech at the RDS on Saturday by declaring: ‘Up the Republic, up the rebels, agus tiocfaidh ár lá.’ Those last three words are innocuous enough when taken on their own, of course, but there is no mistaking their resonance in terms of the IRA’s bloody campaign.

These intemperate-sounding remarks would appear to suggest a serious change of pace by Ms McDonald.

Raised in one of south Dublin’s leafiest enclaves and educated at one of the capital’s more exclusive private schools, she has presented herself as a more moderate face and even-tempered voice of Sinn Féin than we had seen previously. Accordingly, it was reasonable to expect the start of a gradual transformation in the party’s image – and that it would start attracting voters who wouldn’t have been comfortable pledging their support in times past.

This may well still happen, of course. But Ms McDonald’s opening gambits indicate she may not quite be what was expected.