Doherty and McDonald out front as SF seeks Adams successor
Sinn Féin’s long-term project is to edge into the mainstream for possible coalition
Sinn Féin frontbench members Mary Lou McDonald, Pearse Doherty (left) and Gerry Adams: the party is looking to plot its best way forward. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA Wire
Sometime about 2005, when there was a spike in support for Sinn Féin in opinion polls, the possibility of a coalition arrangement with Fianna Fáil was canvassed in the media. When asked about it at a doorstep interview, then taoiseach Bertie Ahern did not dismiss it out of hand but suggested it was an event that might occur only in the distant future.
He said Sinn Féin was at that same stage in the mid-2000s that Sinn Féin the Workers’ Party had been at in the early 1980s. The conclusion was obvious – Sinn Féin was on a journey but its destination was two decades away.