Sinn Fein Secrecy Crisis

Questions facing Sinn Fein are reasonable and answerable it just can’t answer them honestly

Mick Fealty on October 25, 2024, 1:42 pm

| Readers 4812

man in brown button up shirt kissing woman in blue and red floral dress

…novelty ordinarily emerges only for the man who, knowing with precision what he should expect, is able to recognise that something has gone wrong. Thomas S. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions Every time this storm around Sinn Féin looks like abating, something else kicks it off again. Wednesday’s committee meeting may have been a cynical attempt to strong-arm an Assembly committee into silence, but it also raised an important question. Is there an impermeable boundary between the First Minister’s civic …

Another escape from scrutiny as First Minister runs roughshod over Stormont committee…

Mick Fealty on October 24, 2024, 7:12 am

| Readers 3101

I’m putting this up with a minimum of comment. It’s the Stormont Committee for The Executive Office (TEO) which has accumulated 1.7k views within hours of the session finishing. The reason being is that it is utterly shambolic. At the heart of the spectacle is an odd confusion about committee rules that have in place for 26 years. It’s not actually obvious if anyone on the committee (possibly even including the clerk) understood those rules up to the point they …

Sinn Féin’s secrecy crisis deepens as victim gives his version of the Ó Donnghaile story

Mick Fealty on October 20, 2024, 5:47 pm

| Readers 8254

You knew Sinn Féin was in some trouble when it called for Paddy Kielty to be censured for a joke at the start of the Late Late Show, even though their ongoing saga has been pretty much the only thing in the southern domestic news for the last fortnight. Then on Saturday evening the Sunday Independent dropped a bombshell in the form of aa personal testimony from the young person Niall O Donnghaile sent the inappropriate texts which eventually lead …

Sinn Féin’s “politics of concealment” means that what we know now is certainly not “the story…”

Mick Fealty on October 18, 2024, 11:02 am

| Readers 6279

an abandoned building with graffiti on the walls

In the weirdest consensus of post Belfast Agreement Northern Ireland Sinn Féin has agreed to a TUV proposal to cancel former Lord Mayor Niall Ó Donnghaile. Just days ago he was using X to attack journalists for following the McMonagle story. That was before we knew about his own behaviour, and the real reason for his stepping down with a fine encomium from party leader Mary Lou McDonald. Along his official portrait, all evidence of his existence on Twitter has …

There’s no magic carpet out of Sinn Féin’s multiplying issues, other than to make some hard choices…

Mick Fealty on October 15, 2024, 3:45 pm

| Readers 6643

selective focus photography of wind blowing on four green and purple buntings

So Sinn Féin’s troubles continue, this time they are merely deepening in the south. Over the weekend the party lost its second TD in a week to resignation. It wasn’t over the McMonagle case but the result of internal machinations. Kildare South TD Patricia Ryan resigned last Wednesday citing internal censorship by the national leadership of any criticism of the party’s dismal performance in the local and European elections, and the vetting of questions for Mary Lou McDonald. Then on …

In the Dáil Sinn Féin leadership still trying to deflect as further details emerge on McMonagle’s access to Stormont

Mick Fealty on October 9, 2024, 6:55 am

| Readers 4958

You’d wonder what Pearse Doherty was on yesterday in the Dáil when his colleague and leader of the opposition treated their party’s liabilities around McMonagle with lurid insouciance, as it becomes ever obvious the whole party needs to go into rehab. Political parties are a particular type of voluntary organisation which plays an important role in gauging public sentiment and mediating between ordinary people and ultimately the institutions of government be it in opposition or as party of the executive. …

Question for Sinn Féin over its handling of convicted sex abuser: who had knowledge?

Mick Fealty on October 7, 2024, 10:40 am

| Readers 3100

“…uncertainty eases the way for con artists to make fraudulent claims” -Rob Nelson Listening to Carlo Gebler’s new podcast series for BBC Radio 4 on the Provisional IRA’s mass escape from the Maze Prison back in September 1983 you cannot fail to be impressed with its meticulous planning and ruthless execution by the prisoners. Organisation was to become the hallmark of Sinn Féin’s electoral success as they moved from a twin track armed/democratic struggle to a latter day commitment to …

Maurice Quinlivan TD on McMonagle: “I’ll be quite clear, I’m pretty sure we didn’t know…”

Mick Fealty on October 5, 2024, 8:43 am

| Readers 3451

A messy few days in, and some inside Sinn Féin must be questioning the party hierarchy’s decision to make its head northern spin doctor carry the can for what increasingly looks like a much wider screw up. In 22 years I don’t remember anything like it. The problem with secrecy, be it that of the Catholic Church or in more recent times Sinn Féin’s problematic handling of sex cases within its own ranks, is that eventually it gets hard to …

Why Michelle O’Neill’s answers in the McMonagle case just don’t add up…

Mick Fealty on October 3, 2024, 5:35 pm

| Readers 4445

It’s a sniper’s rule you only get two shots at the enemy. A third and they will figure where you’re hiding and you’re a goner. This is now Sinn Féin’s fourth scandal and it is very clear it just cannot deal with child sex abuse cases that involve its members. Being the fourth ‘shot’ the party can no longer expect to have the benefit of the doubt. Their defence on previous occasions was that they were historic, but policies were …