Ciara Phelan: Sinn Féin must grow local if it is to bloom at national level

One Sinn Féin source said they believe the party is struggling to identify candidates is due to how toxic politics has become in recent times.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald during her keynote speech at the Sinn Fein ard fheis at the RDS in Dublin on November 5, 2022.

Sinn Féin members are human after all. Fallible. Flawed like the rest of us.

For almost three years now, we have been conditioned to the idea the party is merely a hop, skip, and a jump away from being the largest in the next Government, with Mary Lou McDonald assured of becoming the country’s first-ever female Taoiseach.