Letters to the Editor: Sinn Féin impressive in ard fheis

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDoanald giving her leaders speech at the Sinn Féin ard fheis last weekend. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

I attended the Sinn Féin ard fheis in Athlone over the weekend as an invited guest. It was my very first time at this party’s gathering and not since the mid 1980s had I attended such an event, when I occasionally went to the Fianna Fáil ard fheis, back in its heyday, with formidable leaders such as Charlie Haughey at the podium.

As a retired middle class lawyer from south Dublin, I approached the location with some apprehension. Would I know anybody, would I have anything remotely in common with other attendees? To my great surprise I found myself sitting beside a UCD medical consultant, an IT entrepreneur, and a teacher in a Protestant school, all from the same south Dublin area. So much for the hitherto perceived and often reported media spin that all Sinn Féin supporters are rabid Provo sympathisers from working class areas of Dublin and Belfast, wearing jeans and hoodies, and festooned with tattoos.