In May 1993, as the IRA edged towards the end of its armed campaign, Michelle O’Neill was beginning her own struggle. She was a 16-year-old working-class schoolgirl from Clonoe, a small village in County Tyrone, with a newborn baby.
The road ahead looked rocky. She had not finished school and perhaps never would, because that was the fate of many unmarried teenage mothers in Northern Ireland. Some teachers at her Catholic grammar school were not supportive.
