They still haven’t gone away you know, Mary Lou

GERRY ADAMS’S long goodbye lasted almost three months. Now it is over and his three-decade tenure as leader of Sinn Féin has also come to an end, as Mary Lou McDonald has taken over as party president. The Dublin Central TD was officially ratified as the new Sinn Féin leader at a special ard fheis on Saturday. She denied the process was a “coronation” and insisted it was the democratic will of her party members.

The new leader restated the party’s goal of achieving a united Ireland while insisting “the war is long over”.

Ms McDonald said she wanted her party to achieve national unity with respect, graciousness and generosity.

“Irish unity cannot be a crude exercise of simply stitching north to south and returning to business as usual. We do not want a 32-county free state. We want a new Ireland, in which rights are guaranteed, cultures respected and the diversity of our identities embraced,” she added.

And then Ms McDonald closed her speech with unscripted militant republican language, drearily reminiscent of the darkest days on this island. She exclaimed “Up the rebels” and “Tiocfaidh ár lá”.

Thus we met the new Sinn Féin leader – much the same as the old Sinn Féin leader. There was an implicit “they still haven’t gone away, you know”, as the middle-class Dublin woman gave a tip of the hat to the “hard men” of recent times of tribulation and grief for many innocent people.

Even discounting for sloganising, which is the stock in trade of party conferences, this was very poor stuff.