Northern Ireland appoints Michelle O’Neill as Prime Minister

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by Deirdre Bardorf

The Northern Ireland government was reinstated on Saturday, exactly two years after it collapsed.

Parliament will return to Parliament in Belfast, where its top priority will be to appoint Michelle O’Neill of the Sinn Féin Irish nationalist party as First Minister, marking a historic shift for the British-ruled country. became.

Ms O’Neill is the first Prime Minister in the party’s history and her appointment is seen as a symbol of Irish nationalism.

“Today is a day of historic change” O’Neill Posted in X Saturday. “As Prime Minister for All, I am determined to work with all parties to deliver for workers, families and all communities,” she added.

The recall came after an agreement to end a two-year boycott by the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party over Brexit trade rules.

The DUP resigned as its first minister in protest in 2022, and the separatist-unionist power-sharing structure in Northern Ireland collapsed.

The DUP will also nominate a deputy first minister to hold a joint post with Mr O’Neill and have equal powers.

The country was founded a century ago to protect the rule of pro-British unionists, who historically wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, separate from sovereign Ireland, and whose majority was Protestant. Ta.

Most Catholics wanted Northern Ireland to merge with the Republic of Ireland.

But there is a shift among a new generation, including the pro-Irish Catholic Mr. O’Neill, who want a unified state.

Sinn Féin has long been shunned by the political establishment as it was the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary group that fought against a divided nation.

Currently the most popular party in Ireland.

Mr O’Neill and Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald represent a new generation of politicians not directly involved in the decades-old bloody conflict between the two factions.

Mr McDonald reportedly said earlier this week that Irish unity was “within reach”.

with post wire