Denis Bradley: Sinn Féin unable to grasp opportunity talks present
Party adrift after McGuinness and unable to compromise for long-term goals
Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s leader in the Northern Ireland Assembly, party president Gerry Adams and deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald at party’s ardfheis in Dublin in November. Photograph: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters
In the film Molly’s Game, running in cinemas at the moment, protagonist Molly Bloom’s psychologist father tells her that she is going to have to squash three years of therapy into three minutes. Sinn Féin might well take the advice and squash some serious self-analysis into the next few weeks.
Sinn Féin has never been so nervous and unsure of itself as during the last few months. The party is nervous about going into government with the DUP and nervous about staying out of government. Some people, when they get to a certain stage of nervousness, want to incessantly talk about the problems they are facing. I have seen people in such a state stopping near-strangers in the street to tell them their worries.