'We have the toolkit' - SF leader believes United Ireland can be achieved without violence

It's "absolutely not" naive to imagine achieving Irish unity peacefully, Mary Lou McDonald has said. 

The Sinn Féin leader dismissed suggestions that a bid for a United Ireland would spark violence, and praised the Good Friday Agreement as a "toolkit" to achieve it. 

She said, "You’ve asked me about violence, and you’re saying, can we navigate this space or is it naïve to imagine that we can do all of this in a peaceful manner? I’m saying to you, no, it’s not. Absolutely not.

“In fact, we’re so lucky as a generation that we have the toolbox to actually do precisely that. We have the guide, we have the map, we have the compass in the Good Friday Agreement." 

Throughout much of 2021, unrest has resurfaced in Northern Ireland, amid loyalist opposition to the Protocol which saw riots across the region, buses hijacked and burned out, and threats of violence against southern politicians including Leo Varadkar. 

According to Deputy McDonald, it's "so important" that whatever people's views are, the only way forward is democratic, peaceful and orderly. 

She said, "I am firm in that view. I’m saying that as the leader of Sinn Féin and I would like to hear others – our unionist colleagues, our loyalist colleagues – reiterating that and echoing that so that everybody is in a shared space in respect of that issue." 

In March this year, four days of riots broke out in Waterside, Derry, before the disturbances spread to south Belfast – in particular at the Peace Wall pressure point of Lanark Way – as well as Carrickfergus and Newtownabbey.

Loyalist protests broke down into full-scale riots, with iron bars, masonry and petrol bombs thrown at the police. Cars were hijacked and burnt out, which in turn sparked counter-demonstrations by nationalists, and police resorted to the use of riot vans and water cannons.

Deputy McDonald continued: "Whatever people’s views on the protocol, on the constitutional question, on reunification, or retaining the union, whatever your perspective, that’s fine.

“We have the democratic architecture and process for all of those views to be heard. There is no reason, there is no excuse, there is no basis for violent actions by anyone.”

She added: "I have to say this also, the unrest that we saw around the protocol was advanced by a small group of people.

“It is not representative of the views of people across society. There is no appetite in my view, at all, in any section of society, bar a tiny minority, for violence or unrest or burning buses.”

She said elements of the Good Friday Agreement, such as human rights provisions and the rights to citizenship and identity, should be retained in a united Ireland.

She has also called for a citizen’s assembly on a border poll to take place as soon as possible.

If the current Government will not provide one, it will be the first order of business should Sinn Féin triumph at the next election.

While she insists that “everything will be on the table” in the debate, any olive branch to unionism will not extend as far as having God Save the Queen as an anthem in a new Ireland.

“That doesn’t work for me, I have to tell you,” she laughs.

“Like I say, somebody who wants to make that argument can make it. But you’re not going to hear it from me. No, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all.”

However, she believes July 12, a date when unionists mark King William of Orange’s victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, could be “a nice summer public holiday”.

“I think you could move beyond the kind of rancor sometimes associated, many times associated, with that time of the year” she said.

“It was very problematic in the north, as we know, and we could turn it into something positive. I think that could be a really interesting conversation.”