Paul Hosford: Mary Lou McDonald here for Sinn Féin 'on the good days and the bad'

Mary Lou McDonald: ‘There’s only one way to become the leader of Sinn Féin, and that’s at our annual ard fheis.’ Picture: Conor Ó Mearáin/PA

As she entered the RDS on Saturday afternoon, Mary Lou McDonald cut a defiant figure.

Flanked by frontbenchers Eoin Ó Broin and Louise O’Reilly, Ms McDonald vowed to lead her party despite impending defeats in two by-elections.

In Galway West, the party’s Mark Lohan took some 5,000 votes fewer than Mairéad Farrell had in late 2024. Perhaps most troubling for the leader, Janice Boylan, who stood alongside Ms McDonald in the RDS, was on track to be soundly defeated by the Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis in the leader’s constituency.

The failure to elect a long-time councillor in her own constituency sparked questions about the future of the leader, questions she would brush off.

“There’s only one way to become the leader of Sinn Féin, and that’s at our annual ard fheis. There isn’t an alternative route, folks.

“That’s how we decide our leader, and that decision was taken three weeks ago at our ard fheis.

“I am the leader of Sinn Féin. I will lead on, and the job of a leader is that you are there on the good days and the bad days.

You are there when things go very much your own way, and then also when things get tight, so that is not a question

One would expect Ms McDonald to defend her position, though one wonders if she protested too much for someone who claimed not to be under pressure earlier in the day.

Having become leader in 2018, she would endure a dismal local election in 2019.

A 2020 general election resurgence made it seem inevitable she would be the first female taoiseach. At points in 2021, it seemed not just a question of whether Ms McDonald would lead the next government but who might be coalition partners.

Opinion polls

While personally popular, Ms McDonald’s party found itself slipping in opinion polls in the second half of 2023, a slide which it was not able to arrest as it became mired in internal scandals and lost on issues such as immigration before a general election which saw it finish with 21.1% of first preferences and 39 seats — a net gain of two but in a larger Dáil.

But while Dublin Central sparked questions about leadership, it is a perfect example of where the party is challenged and the answers it needs to find quickly. Is Sinn Féin aiming to be an antidote to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in ideology or in application? Is it a centrist party that can just do things better than the coalition because it is more competent? Or is it one that fundamentally believes that what is being done needs to be different on a cellular level?

Because its pitch at the moment is seeing it squeezed on both sides, and that is dangerous territory to be in. Bleeding from both sides requires you to stem at least one, lest you need major surgery.

The talk of leadership is easier and more dramatic, but the question of what this means to be Sinn Féin should linger longer and loom larger.