Under the surface of Mary Lou McDonald’s words is the old Sinn Fein worldview

As is understood by most unionists, and as is gleefully pointed out by many nationalists, unionism in Northern Ireland faces big challenges.

One such challenge is the rise of Mary Lou McDonald.

The Sinn Fein leader is a more plausible face of republicanism. She is not of IRA heritage and does not have the baggage that, deservedly, has held back the Provisional movement’s political advance among people across the island who remember terrorism.

While some prominent members of Sinn Fein still behave in ways that are seen by unionists to be triumphalist and sectarian, Ms McDonald speaks a language of friendship. To many young people she represents a new political era.

The soft image is apparent in her interview with the Press Association, which we report today on pages 1, 6 and 7.

Ms McDonald laughs at the prospect of God Save the Queen as an anthem of a ‘new Ireland’, dismissing it with humour rather than with republican hatred. She suggests July 12 as a “nice summer holiday”. She talks about the lack of support for violence on either side of the tribal divide.

But these are nods to concession that begin to evaporate on inspection. Talk of lack of support for violence, while welcome, should only make more pressing the question of why there was past violence, during, for example the 1980s, when SF only mustered 10% of the vote in NI (3% in the Republic).

And a July 12 holiday, for example, would be worth nothing if future generations of children in what is now Northern Ireland were educated to believe Irish grievances and myths.

Listen closely to Ms McDonald and you still hear republican bitterness. She would not even join the Commonwealth, a friendly association of nations, some of which– unlike Ireland – were once actual colonies of Britain but who have been generous, open-minded and forgiving enough to join up even so.

Don’t let advocates of the old, insular Ireland fool you by using the word ‘New’.

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