Interviews

Sinn Féin is hosting an important conference this weekend on issues related to the all-Ireland agenda. Here, Mitchel McLaughlin outlines his view of how the party's all-Ireland approach is impacting on the wider political stage  View more

On 5 May, Conor Murphy made history by taking the fifth Westminster seat for Sinn Féin, in Newry/Armagh, with a massive 8,000 more votes than his nearest rival, the SDLP's Dominic Bradley.  View more

inn Féin Vice President Pat Doherty talked to An Phoblacht's Joanne Corcoran about the newly formed Electoral Department, which will be trying to deal with the neverending task of managing elections north and south of the border  View more

Just over two years ago, I was given my first assignment as an An Phoblacht journalist. My mission, as I chose to accept it, was to go over to Dawson Street and get some comments from the five newly elected Sinn Féin TDs as they prepared to make their historic entrance into Leinster House.  View more

Life is never easy when you're a councillor, but for some, it's harder than most. Jimmy McDonnell is a newly elected Sinn Féin councillor on Longford Town Council and already he has had to stand up to the town's mayor.  View more

Sinn Féin North Belfast MLA Gerry Kelly in an exclusive interview in today's issue of An Phoblacht talks about the events in Ardoyne on the Twelfth of July. In the interview Mr. Kelly reveals that a tragedy on the scale of Bloody Sunday was only narrowly avoided that day. He said that ultimate responsibility lies with the British Government.  View more

Earlier this summer, Sinn Féin spokesperson on Truth Recovery, Philip McGuigan, accused the British Secretary of State of "breathtaking hypocrisy" as Paul Murphy toured South Africa studying their model of truth and reconciliation.  View more

Breige and Martin Meehan are heroes, not in the style of Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones or Russell Crowe's Gladiator, but in the understated manner of earlier Hollywood stars, Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mocking Bird, Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men and Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath.  View more

This week, a feature film, based on the struggle of republican women prisoners in Armagh Jail for political status, has been running in Dublin. Although conceding the good intentions behind the project, women POWs who were in Armagh have criticised Silent Grace's portrayal of their part in the prison struggle. Here, former POW Sinéad Moore, Mairéad Farrell's longtime cellmate, tells JIM GIBNEY what it was really like.  View more

Interview with Gerry Adams 8 July 2003  View more

Interview with Mitchel McLaughlin/ July 2003  View more

On Saturday night 19 June, republicans from across the country and from further afield will gather in the Citywest Hotel in Dublin to honour five republicans who have made lifelong contributions to the republican struggle. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams will give the keynote address at the Le Chéile event, which will include dinner, music and dancing. The Ulster nominee is Eoin McCaughey, a native of Cappagh, County Tyrone. BARRY McELDUFF spoke to Eoin about his life and his political beliefs.  View more

Maurice Quinlivan is optimistic about his chances in Limerick City Council. Sinn Féin hasn't had a councillor in the county for over 50 years, but according to all sources this will be the year that brings the dry spell to the end.  View more

Roisín Ó Sullivan has an added bonus for her publicity campaign in these local elections. She has just turned 19 and is the youngest candidate in the party and one of the youngest candidates in the whole country.  View more

"You know the way, when you are in jail, you have a picture in your mind of the place you love. This strand was that picture for my father, which went with him through the jails in England. He used to run along the strand here at Luddon Beach every morning. It's like it's ours - it meant so much to him."  View more

"People, especially women, want change - it's not just a slogan," says Rose Conway Walsh, who is standing in Belmullet for Mayo County Council. "There is a huge issue of poverty today for the people who have been left behind, particularly in rural areas. I know this. I work in a community development project, and I see it all around me. People in Dublin have absolutely no idea what under-development of the West means in everyday life.  View more

Over the phone is never the best way to conduct an interview with somebody. Aside from the usual problems of not being able to hear the person on the other end and having to jot down answers at top speed, holding the phone with one hand and the pen in the other, there's also the difficulty of having to guess your subject's mood - something you can gauge easily in a face-to-face interview. The staff in the IRM office expected all of these problems and more when we spoke with Sinn Féin's East EU candidate John Dwyer last Monday.  View more

The IRM met with Sinn Féin's South EU candidate David Cullinane this week, to discuss the progress of his campaign in the old Munster constituency. Cullinane spoke about the issues he is hearing on the doorsteps, the advantage that being the youngest candidate in the race has given him, the fact that he is the only Waterford-based candidate running in the South, and the profile his campaign is giving to Sinn Féin in his home county.  View more

At 26 years of age, Pearse Doherty is not only the youngest Sinn Féin candidate to run in the European Union Parliament elections in June, but the youngest candidate on the whole island overall. Pearse has been making his mark on the political stage for the last few years, and now, as well as running for Europe, he is also running in the local elections.  View more

Mary Lou is the name on everybody's lips in Dublin this month. Even people who have had their heads in the sand for the last year and were unaware that Sinn Féin was running Mary Lou McDonald as their Dublin EU candidate, can't have failed to notice the thousands of colourful, eye-catching posters which now adorn practically every lamp-post in the city. She's been on current affairs programmes on radio and television, she's in the papers almost every day, and she's at debates all over the country.  View more

Sinn Féin six county EU candidate Bairbre de Brún this morning handed in her nomination papers. She was joined by party President Gerry Adams, Armagh Mayor Pat O'Rawe and Chief Negotiator Martin McGuinness MP. On Friday, the IRM accompanied Bairbre de Brún around Belfast, as she recorded footage for the party's election broadcast. While on that trip, we interviewed Bairbre about the upcoming EU elections.  View more

How has this year's Ard Fheis gone Robbie? It has been an incredible success. It has definitely been one of our biggest ever. I'm amazed at the amount of delegates here, there are so many that we've already started talking about the need for a much bigger venue next year. And the standard of the debates have been excellent.  View more

What has been the highlight for you of this year's Ard Fheis? It was definitely when they brought all the relatives of collusion onto the stage during Gerry Adams Presidential Address. Knowing that that was going out live was mind-blowing -- it was being broadcast by the same media that has attempted to marginalise and demonise people who have campaigned for the truth about collusion through the years.  View more

How are you finding this year's Ard Fheis? I'm finding it very positive. There is a really positive mood among all the delegates, and I'm struck by the amount of young people present. Some of them are coming here very annoyed, especially with the remarks that 26-County Justice Minister Michael McDowell has been making. It's good to see this kind of energy going into an election.  View more

Caitríona Ruane is a deeply committed human rights and community activist. She is married with two daughters and lives in Louth. A fluent Spanish speaker, she worked for a US-based aid foundation from 1983-87 in Central America. On her return to Ireland she worked full-time for Trocaire before co-founding the Centre for Research and Documentation, which studied conflict resolution in South Africa and Central America and hosted Nobel Peace Prize winners (Rigoberta Menchu from Guatemala and Jose Ramos Horta from East Timor) on a visit to Ireland.  View more

Martin Spain is the editor of An Phoblacht/Republican News, Ireland's biggest selling weekly political newspaper. AP/RN is an historic part of Sinn Féin. The paper is an amalgamation of An Phoblacht, which started over 80 years ago, and Republican News, which was founded in the 1940s. The two amalgamated in 1979. With offices in Dublin and Belfast, the paper offers a radical weekly commentary on the major news stories of the day and a republican analysis of all aspects of Irish politics, most notably the ongoing peace process.  View more

In this exclusive interview with IRM, Joe Cahill, lifelong republican and honorary Vice-President of Sinn Féin, talks about life in a sectarian Belfast, his reasons for joining the IRA, being on hunger strike, Bloody Sunday and his trips to America.  View more