New broom in Sinn Féin with swathe of young ‘baggage-free’ TDs

Sinn Féin’s success in the general election brings in a swathe of new TDs, distinguished not just by their youth but by their lack of “baggage” from the Troubles.

From the results thus far and likely indicators, the vast majority of these TDs are indeed a new generation.

One such TD Maurice Quinlivan, a councillor in Limerick City, is from a republican family in Ballynanty, near Thomond Park. His brother Nessan Quinlivan is a former IRA member who escaped from Brixton prison in 1981 with Pearse McAuley while awaiting trial on charges related to a suspected IRA assassination plot.

Mr Quinlivan has been a member of Limerick City Council since 2004 and was formerly a travel agent.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said the party’s appeal had been broadening in the last 10 to 15 years and this had been shown in the rise in first preference votes and transfers.

Local election

The new broom of TDs had their genesis to an extent in the 2014 local elections.

Ms McDonald said “I think at the last local elections what you saw for us was the election of, in some respects, a whole new generation of political leaders and that of course is a very healthy thing for us”.

She described the changes as a generational switch. “Everybody has a past and the important thing for us today is we have a real sense of our development and how we’ll develop things further up.”

The generational change is matched to some extent by an increase in the number of women in the parliamentary party.

The new generation of TDs includes Carmel Nolan from Cadamstown, Offaly, who is a primary school teacher.

Senator David Cullinane (41) from Co Waterford has been a councillor since 2004 and was elected to the Dáil on the same day as his ex-wife Katherine Funchion (33), a councillor and Siptu workers’ rights activist.

Louise O’Reilly, the new Dublin Fingal TD, is a trade union organiser and member of the Ictu public services committee.

Eoin Ó Broin, elected in Dublin Mid West was a Belfast city councillor from 2001 to 2004. A Dubliner, he is economic, housing and EU policy adviser to the parliamentary party.

The new Sinn Féin TD for Wicklow John Brady is a married father of five from Bray. A councillor since 2009 he was chairman of Bray municipal district and served on Bray Town Council.

The new Cork East TD is councillor Pat Buckley who is press officer for the Let’s Get Together Foundation, a non-profit suicide prevention group. A married father of two teenagers, he like the other TDs, is embedded in his local community.

Likely TD Imelda Munster is Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams’s running mate in Louth. Married with two teenage daughters, she lives in Drogheda and has been on Louth County Council since 2004. Housing, hospital closures and road safety form the meat of her daily political work.

Sinn Féin will probably still feel the political heat about the North for as long as those involved in the Troubles are to the fore, but the new generation are different.