{"id":383714,"date":"2026-04-05T21:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/383714\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T21:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T21:05:13","slug":"biggest-barrier-to-united-ireland-is-the-government-says-sinn-feins-mary-lou-mcdonald-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/383714\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest barrier to united Ireland is the Government, says Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Mary Lou McDonald \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald has accused the Government of being the \u201cbiggest barrier\u201d to a united Ireland due to what she described as a failure to plan for a referendum. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In advance of the upcoming 30th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement in 2028, McDonald has accused Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin of trying to \u201cstifle\u201d unification. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Sinn F\u00e9in leader said she believes this is the decade \u201cwhen Irish unity can be won\u201d in a referendum. But that unification will require vision, determination, and leadership, she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/2026\/03\/17\/the-debate-should-the-tricolour-be-replaced-in-a-united-ireland\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Should the Tricolour be replaced in a united Ireland?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cBut instead, Fianna F\u00e1il leader Miche\u00e1l Martin pushes back, chooses to stifle, hinder and avoid the most important national conversation of our time. It is telling that the biggest barrier today to preparing and planning Irish unity is the Fianna F\u00e1il-Fine Gael Government,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cMy message to the Taoiseach is direct: you have a responsibility to lead on Irish reunification. To persist with inaction and drift is a dereliction of your duty. It\u2019s not good enough to be a bystander as history unfolds.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">She said the Government had a responsibility to plan for constitutional change and unification. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McDonald was speaking on Sunday at her party\u2019s event commemorating the Easter Rising at Arbour Hill. The Sinn F\u00e9in Easter commemoration travelled from Wolfe Tone Quay to Arbour Hill Cemetery in Dublin during the afternoon. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767177877588-3bab3de8-62c2-4c3b-9d11-75f906621012.jpeg\"\/>Collapse: How Labour went from boom to bust<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In her speech, she accused the Coalition parties of trying to \u201cdesecrate\u201d the \u201csacred\u201d places of the Rising \u2013 like the GPO and Moore Street in Dublin city centre \u2013 for commercial, corporate interests. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cThese streets, laneways and buildings belong to our revolutionary history, to the people of Ireland, to future generations,\u201d she said. \u201cSites that must be preserved and transformed into a cultural and historical quarter worthy of the sacrifices of our courageous patriots.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">McDonald also claimed that the Government plans to undo the triple lock \u2013 a mechanism by which the Government, D\u00e1il and UN Security Council must sign off on plans to deploy more than 12 Defence Forces members abroad. The Sinn F\u00e9in leader said this was an effort to \u201csend our sons and daughters off to fight and die in military conflicts and colonial wars that have nothing to do with our country\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald has accused the Government of being the \u201cbiggest barrier\u201d to a united&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-383714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}