Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald said her party\u2019s decision on the upcoming presidential election will be a \u201cgame-changer.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she would not reveal a name, the Dublin Central TD confirmed at the National Ploughing Championships that the party\u2019s candidate has \u201ca lot of Irish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sinn F\u00e9in will announce on Saturday whether it will back another candidate, such as Catherine Connolly, or run its own. Suggested names include Pearse Doherty and Michelle O\u2019Neill. However, Ms O\u2019Neill is not fluent in Irish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have a decision on Saturday, and I think Sinn F\u00e9in’s participation will be a game-changer in this election,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’ll be very much ‘game on’. The leadership will bring its decision, make it public on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going to be very active in this important campaign, which starts on September 24, with the close of nominations. Then there’ll be four weeks or a bit more of active campaigning, plenty of time for people to make up their minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur objective comes down to this: For us in Sinn F\u00e9in, we want to get Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il out of government, and we want to keep Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il out of the \u00c1ras. That’s what our campaign will aim to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
When asked what she meant by \u201cgame-changer,\u201d Ms McDonald replied: \u201ca game changer\u201d, \u201cMatch of the Day\u201d and \u201cUp for the Match\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoes it sound very GAA?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the decision taken by us, we’re a large party, we’re a national party, and a national organisation, I think, will be very influential in this contest.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald said the party has had an \u201cintensive deliberation\u201d and confirmed it has spoken with Catherine Connolly and her campaign team, as well as with other potential candidates.<\/p>\n
Answering questions in Irish, Ms McDonald said she believes the president should be able to speak the language and that the party\u2019s candidate has \u201ca lot of Irish.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sinn F\u00e9in leader said she had decided not to contest the election as she was \u201ckeenly conscious that we have made commitments to the Irish people, to sections of society that desperately need effective representation\u201d.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cI don\u2019t quit on things. I stick with them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms McDonald confirmed that she, Pearse Doherty, and Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill will announce the candidate on Saturday.<\/p>\n
She did not respond to suggestions that the late decision allows Ms O\u2019Neill to spend a short time away from Stormont.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald said her party\u2019s decision on the upcoming presidential election will be a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,47,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-71734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-presidential-election","22":"tag-sinn-fein","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}