Fianna Fáil and SDLP people feel now is the time to move on merger

Losing the SDLP name will rankle with many members of the party

Micheál Martin:  he has  tried to calm nerves without giving too much away

Micheál Martin: he has tried to calm nerves without giving too much away

It’s been an 11-year courtship between Fianna Fáil and the SDLP, but despite renewed wooing there has been no engagement or wedding ring thus far. Yet now it seems the banns of marriage are to be published early in the new year.

Serious talk of some form of all-Ireland relationship between the two parties goes back to 2007 and the time of then taoiseach Bertie Ahern and former SDLP leader Mark Durkan, but the economic crash – and subsequent crash of Fianna Fáil – put everything on hold.

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