Léargas

The Ard Fheis was our biggest ever. The enthusiastic and very positive mood among delegates and the level of debate on policy issues was extraordinary and impressive. As someone else said to me the hall was buzzing. And that was especially evident at the end of the Saturday evening when the two and a half thousand people packed into the RDS raised their voices to the rafters and sang "Óró, sé do bheatha abhaile". The Ard Fheis took lots of important decisions relating to the party’s constitution; to the issue of Sinn Féin going into coalition government in the south; on housing and health and abortion and many other matters. It was also a night of remembrance. Martin McGuinness’s wife Bernie and his family were present for a celebration of his life and times that was hugely emotional. Elisha McCallion’s reflective words on Martin, the video of young people reciting his poem – Fullerton’s Dam – and the music was evocative and moving. Republicans  miss Martin. We also...

This blog was due to be posted at the weekend but because of the Ard Fheis it was held back until today. My next blog in two days will deal with my decision, which I announced at the Ard Fheis,  to stand down as Uachtarán Shinn Féin. It was a refusal by the DUP to agree on the implementation of past agreements, including the introduction of an Irish Language Act, a Bill of Rights and the funding of legacy inquests, which blocked efforts last week to restore the political institutions. All of these matters, and others, including marriage equality, are part of the jig-saw of connecting issues which have been fundamental to the different phases of negotiations since last January. When you strip away the complexities surrounding each separate issue in the current impasse you will find at their heart a deep desire by nationalists to be treated as equal to their unionist neighbours. It’s about equality. While the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, and the DUPs inadequate response t...

I went to my first Sinn Féin Ard Fheis about fifty years ago. I say about fifty years ago because I don’t recall if it was in 1967 or 1968 and I haven’t the time to check out the dates. Suffice to say it was a long time ago. I was the youngest in a small delegation of Belfast comrades including the late Seán McCormack. We stayed in The Castle Hotel in Gardiner Street. Local legend has it that Micheál Collins used to stay there. The Castle certainly has a chequered republican history from 1916 through the Tan and Civil War onwards. That Ard Fheis weekend was also the first time I stayed in a hotel. Sinn Féin Ard Fheiseanna have frequently been the scene for the most important decisions affecting the direction of republican politics on this island. It is the Ard Fheis, not the Party President or Ard Chomhairle (National Executive), which is the supreme authority of Sinn Féin and this year’s Ard Fheis which takes place at the weekend in the RDS in Dublin promises to be another of t...