Sinn Fein is not a normal political party. Don’t take my word for it, the charge is laid by the Irish Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, in his frequent clashes with the party’s leader Mary Lou McDonald in the Irish parliament.
The Shinners smell power in the South. According to the latest polls they are the most popular party in the Republic of Ireland. Meanwhile the Irish political ruling class have long disdained Sinn Fein, a party that sees itself as the authentic inheritor of the 1916 uprising that ejected Britain from most of Ireland. But Sinn Fein shouldn’t be let off the hook for their unrepented and inextricable links to the Provisional IRA who, above all other combatants, perverted the cause of Irish unity with 30 years of sectarian slaughter.
In an interview with the Sunday Times last weekend, Martin challenged Sinn Fein to apologise for this murderous relationship.
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