Northern Ireland lawmakers are set to elect an Irish nationalist First Minister for the first time on Saturday, placing a member of the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army in charge of a region where it seeks an end to British rule.
But Michelle O’Neill’s ascent to the role also marks the most significant milestone yet in a shift to a new generation of more pragmatic Irish nationalists not directly involved in the region’s decades-long bloody conflict.
Her election was made possible by a compromise between her Sinn Fein party and its arch-rival, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which this week ended a boycott of the region’s power-sharing government that had threatened the 1998 Good Friday peace settlement.
“This is a historic moment in time, it’s not lost of the wider public,” O’Neill said on Tuesday when the DUP’s decision to re-enter government made her election inevitable.
