Varadkar accuses Mary Lou McDonald of justifying Sinn Féin’s ‘intimidation’ after young activist leaves party

TÁNAISTE LEO VARADKAR has accused Mary Lou McDonald of justifying “internal party intimidation” after the Sinn Féin leader downplayed an incident that prompted the resignation of a young party activist last week.

The Irish Examiner first reported over the weekend that Christine O’Mahoney left Sinn Féin after claiming that another member called her home for posts she made criticizing TD Brian Stanley.

TD Laois-Offaly apologized last week for a tweet about two IRA attacks on the British military, but was later criticized for a charge that followed Varadkar’s election as the leader of Fine Gael.

That post read: “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. “

O’Mahoney, a member of UCD Ógra Sinn Féin, had criticized Stanley for the tweet that made reference to Varadkar’s sexuality.

It is alleged that he was ordered to remove the online posts and warned not to comment on Sinn Féin-related issues in public.

When asked about the allegations on Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio this morning, McDonald said that “no one [was] trying to censor anyone ”and that he would have a problem if a party activist tried to stop someone who criticized him.

But the Sinn Féin leader suggested that the incident was instead an attempt to communicate that some in the party were unhappy with what O’Mahoney had posted.

“I understand the knock on the door was to say that obviously there is discomfort here, there is a problem here,” McDonald said.

“There are internal mechanisms through which this can be addressed, that’s all.”

He also claimed that the person who called O’Mahoney’s home was “a local person” known to all members of the former activist’s local group.

“I wouldn’t think twice about knocking on a Cumann member’s door,” McDonald said.

“Obviously, in this case, the exception that someone knocked 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.”

However, Varadkar subsequently criticized McDonald for the interview and his response to the controversies.

He tweeted:

I have not made any public comment on Brian Stanley’s tweets, but hearing Mary Lou McDonald this morning misleading and justifying the glorification of violence, latent homophobia and internal party intimidation is truly nauseating. This is not the kind of change Ireland needs, ever.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin also described allegations that one activist called another’s home as “heavy handed” and “intimidating.”

“It represents the cult of control within Sinn Féin … pressure is put on individuals in the party to conform at all costs,” he said.

Martin also asked McDonald to officially condemn two attacks, the Narrow Water and Warrenpoint attacks in 1979, which Stanley appeared to celebrate in his social media post.

Stanley’s social media accounts were deactivated after he insisted he had nothing to apologize for regarding the tweet he sent about Varadkar.

He is scheduled to make a statement to Dáil next Monday about his social media posts, as well as the comments he made about Chinese food and the Covid-19 pandemic.