Irish Examiner View: Sinn Féin ratcheting up the anger

The reaction to Sinn Féin’s decision to call public meetings over the next two weeks to “rally public support for Sinn Féin’s efforts to get into government” will be, naturally, polarised.

The party’s supporters will suggest the meetings are no more than a public reiteration of the call for change expressed so forcefully on February 8.

Their diverse opponents — still the great majority, no matter how loud the shouting — might see this as a sinister ratcheting up of the atmosphere as talks to form government continue.

That ratcheting up continues apace online where street protests are promised if SF is not included in government.

As is often the case, the provenance of these suggestions is unclear.

So too is the understanding of those who make these threats on how democracy — or maths — works.

Ironically, calling these meetings is so revealing that some unaligned TDs who might contemplate a partnership with SF might decide otherwise remembering, as Garda Commissioner Drew Harris pointed out last week, that the organisation has many, many layers.

It is difficult to understand what might be achieved other than exacerbate anger — anger that cannot be assuaged outside of Leinster House.

Ms McDonald may discover that, just like the grand old Duke of York, she has marched her troops to the top of the hill only to have to march them down again — but what a dangerous, slippery slope that is.