Despite any doubts Irish voters may have, Sinn Fein has emerged as a respectable, mainstream party.
Through their world-wide Peace and Reconciliation efforts, the party is already seen by many as the international face of Irish politics. Party leaders have lost their ‘terrorist’ tag and acquired star status, with Martin McGuiness - even gaining approval from many unionists - judged Northern Ireland’s “most impressive” political leader.
In the Republic of Ireland Sinn Fein has traditionally suffered from the squeeze of Fianna Fail, who provided a vehicle for voters with republican sympathies, and the Irish Labour party offering a centre-left alternative. Now, with a successful election under their belt, upcoming anniversaries could help even further in Sinn Fein’s inevitable rise.
Next month sees the thirtieth anniversary of the start of the Hunger Strike when ten republican prisoners in the Maze prison starved to death. The anniversary has enduring emotional resonance – and political significance - as the deaths catapulted republicans into politics, leading to the ‘ballot box and armalite” strategy and Sinn Fein to this point.
2011 is also the fortieth anniversary of the imposition of internment without trial in Northern Ireland, which saw hundreds of innocent Catholics imprisoned without trial. Such anniversaries underscore the scale of British policy failures in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s and 1980s.
Hot on the heels of successful Dail results for Sinn Fein we have elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 5th May. Given the dis-array among the different Unionist parties, there is every chance of Sinn Fein topping the poll at Stormont to give it the right to claim the position of First Minister in the north of Ireland - an area which has always been regarded as “a protestant parliament for protestant people”
Despite the fears of some unionists, Britain’s Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, recently indicated the government would not block such an appointment if that were to happen.
A lacklustre effort by Fine Gael, led by an equally lacklustre Enda Kenny in this new Dail, may well signal the point where the mould of Irish politics is finally broken. Then Sinn Fein, who for the first time since the 1918 general election, when the party won three-quarters of the parliamentary seats in a 32-county Ireland, can again emerge as the all-Ireland political force.
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