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Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald played down an incident in which a party member knocked on the door of a young activist in light of critical tweets she sent.
Christine O’Mahony, a member of UCD Ógra Sinn Féin, resigned from the party after a Sinn Féin member called her home to demand that she delete tweets critical of the party. Ms. O’Mahony was also told not to discuss internal issues in public.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Claire Byrne radio show, Ms McDonald said that “anyone can criticize Sinn Féin, I often criticize the party myself. No one tries to censor anyone. “
“Someone from [her] Cumann called home. I know everyone in my cumann, everyone knows me. I wouldn’t think twice about knocking on a Cumann member’s door. Obviously, in this case, the exception of someone knocking on the door was taken, but I can’t allow you to create a completely false perception that an unknown anonymous figure landed on someone’s door. “
McDonald said he knows who the person who called O’Mahony is. “This person is a local person who is known to all members and was elected to the position they hold.”
issue
When asked if it was true that she had no problem with what happened, the Sinn Féin leader said: “I would have a big problem with anyone who goes to someone’s doorstep and instructs someone who cannot be critical. I understand that the knock on the door was to say that there is obviously discomfort here, there is a problem here. There are internal mechanisms through which this can be addressed, that’s all ”.
Ms. O’Mahony had criticized Brian Stanley for a 2017 tweet about Leo Varadkar that appeared to refer to the Fine Gael frontman’s sexuality.
Stanley, who initially defended the comment before deleting his social media accounts late last week, tweeted: “Yippee 4 d tory. it’s Leo. You can do whatever you want in bed, but you don’t look like a raise the next morning. “
McDonald said he first “couldn’t understand” why he had sent it, but then said it had to be seen in the context that it was sent the day Varadkar became leader of the Fine Gael party.
Stanley currently takes a week off before making a personal statement to Dáil next week.
Ms. McDonald said she had asked Mr. Stanley to take a week off because “she was concerned about his well-being and wanted him to have a little room to breathe.”
No equivalence
He said there was no equivalence between Stanley’s first tweet and the controversy in which Leo Varadkar leaked a document to a friend.
In the first controversial online message, the Laois-Offaly TD tweeted in reference to the Kilmichael ambush in 1920 and the Narrow Water massacre in Warrenpoint, Co Down in 1979, stating that they were “the 2 IRA operations that the elite of the British Army and the settlement were taught the cost of occupying Ireland. Pity for everyone, they were such slow learners ”.
Mrs. McDonald said that Mr. Stanley had apologized for this, but she said the real problem was the “tone”.
“Tone is everything. I think the reality is that the recognition and revocation of ambushes in the course of the war for independence and beyond, are issues that are marked and discussed, and yes the tone was the problem.
He said there is not a single shared vision in Ireland about the country’s history.
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