Sinn Féin optimistic but breakthrough unlikely in Irish election

The Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, seen here canvassing in Naas, Co Kildare, said the improving poll figures suggested ‘we can have a government led by Sinn Féin’. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Sinn Féin, the former political wing of the IRA, is hoping to stage a last-minute revival in the Irish general election after polls put it ahead of the party led by the taoiseach, Simon Harris.

Ahead of Friday’s election, the party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, has said she sees a path to victory, after polls this week showed Harris’s centre-right Fine Gael dropping from first to third place and the progressive, populist, leftwing Sinn Féin moving into second behind Fine Gael’s government coalition partner, Fianna Fáil.