From a background steeped in Irish republicanism, Michelle O’Neill has risen to make history as Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister. She has pledged to work with unionists to build a better future for Northern Ireland.
Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s deputy leader, has made history as the first nationalist to hold the role of first minister at the Northern Ireland Assembly. She has pledged to work with unionists to build a better future for Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin became the biggest party at Stormont after the election in May 2022, meaning Ms O’Neill has been entitled to the role since then.
But the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had refused to join a power-sharing executive as part of its protest against post-Brexit trading regulations, preventing her from taking up the post.
Ms O’Neill has been the face of her party’s long campaign to have the Assembly restored, repeatedly promoted as a “first minister for all”.
When she appeared with party leader Mary Lou McDonald in the Great Hall of Stormont after the DUP agreed to end the political impasse, the two women were quick to point out the huge political significance of the moment, stating that their ultimate strategy of Irish unity is within “touching distance.”
In accordance with the Good Friday Agreement (also known as the Belfast Agreement) signed in 1998, power-sharing between the ‘unionist’ and ‘nationalist’ factions is mandated. As per this agreement, Michelle O’Neill will share power with Emma Little-Pengelly, the First Minister (Deputy Prime Minister) from the pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). The Good Friday Agreement stipulates that the two parties forming the government must have equal authority.
Who is Michelle O’Neill?
Ms O’Neill grew up steeped in the history of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.
Born Michelle Doris on 10 January 1977, she was raised in the rural village of Clonoe in County Tyrone and hails from a family of prominent Irish republicans. Her father, Brendan Doris, was a former IRA prisoner who became a Sinn Féin councillor in Dungannon in the 1980s. Her uncle, Paul Doris, has been president of Noraid, a republican fundraising group.
When the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that helped bring an end to 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland, was signed in 1998 she began working for Sinn Féin.
It brought her into direct contact with the party’s deputy leader Martin McGuinness, who at that time was running for election in the Mid Ulster constituency.
In addition to working with him and his fellow Mid Ulster assembly member Francie Molloy, she spent this period training as a welfare rights adviser.
When her father stepped down from Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council ahead of the 2005 election she won the seat he vacated in the Torrent electoral area. She would later become the first woman to hold the post of mayor in the borough.
Her assembly career began in 2007, when she joined Mr McGuinness and Mr Molloy as a Mid Ulster assembly member.
She became her party’s spokeswoman for health and sat on the education committee. After four years on the backbenches at Stormont, Sinn Féin appointed her as minister for agriculture in 2011. In 2016 she became health minister, one of Stormont’s most high-profile and challenging portfolios.
In January 2017, Martin McGuinness announced his resignation as deputy first minister to protest against the DUP’s handling of a botched energy scheme. At Stormont the positions of first and deputy first minister are joint roles – if one resigns it forces the resignation of the other, collapsing the power-sharing executive. When Mr McGuinness died soon afterwards, Ms O’Neill was selected to replace him as Sinn Féin deputy leader.
She said it was “the biggest honour and privilege” of her life.