Sinn Féin’s McDonald has been a good soldier, in civilian clothes

By teatime on Saturday, Mary Lou McDonald will be president of Sinn Féin. It will have been 35 years since Gerry Adams took over from Ruairí Ó Brádaigh.

If the contrast between Ó Brádaigh and Adams was a gulf, the greater difference between the former and McDonald was unimaginable in 1983 and for a long time afterwards.

If it is a measure of progress for most, we should not forget that it is a horrifying spectacle for irredentist republicans. Progress you see, depends on perspective.