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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent

Michelle O’Neill: Sinn Féin leader from IRA family who has vowed to respect royals

Michelle O'Neill
‘No airs, easy to get on with’: Michelle O'Neill is poised to become Northern Ireland’s first nationalist first minister. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

When Michelle O’Neill is sworn in as Northern Ireland’s first minister, it will be a moment of personal triumph steeped in irony.

As a teenage mother, she was treated as if she had the “plague”, and wept, yet went on to ascend the ranks of Sinn Féin and is now poised to make history as the first nationalist to lead Northern Ireland – a state that, in theory, she wishes to eradicate.

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