Mary Lou McDonald has maintained that Sinn Féin’s St Patrick’s Day boycott of the White House has not harmed the party’s ties with Irish America, reports Breaking News.
According to the party president, Sinn Féin has “deep and enduring” ties in the US, and its “friends in the United States understand why we took this decision.”
Ms. McDonald also offered her thoughts on Conor McGregor, a mixed martial arts athlete, who met with President Donald Trump on Monday on St. Patrick’s Day at the Oval Office, reports Breaking News.
The president of Sinn Féin expressed her disappointment that the president did not seem to be aware that Katie Taylor, a two-weight world boxing champion, is truly Ireland’s best fighter.
In protest of Mr. Trump’s position on the Gaza war, Sinn Féin chose not to attend the White House celebration of Ireland’s patron saint, reports Breaking News.
Afterwards, Taoiseach Micheál Martin called the boycott a “big mistake.”
Mr. Martin claimed that the decision was “not in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland,” specifically mentioning the absence of Stormont First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Fein. He also noted that “huge efforts” were made in the US at the start of the peace process to support Sinn Féin, reports Breaking News.
Last week, neither the Alliance Party nor the SDLP visited the White House.
When questioned about the boycotts at his bilateral meeting with Mr. Martin in the Oval Office last week, Mr. Trump said he was unaware of them.
“I haven’t heard that, I really haven’t heard that,” the president said to reporters, reports Breaking News.
Speaking to the media in Stormont in Belfast on Friday, Ms. McDonald was questioned over the party’s choice.
“It has taken a very long time for Ireland and Sinn Fein to develop their relationships with the United States,” she stated, reports Breaking News.
“They’re very deep and enduring relationships, and I believe that the contact, that those relationships will continue to grow. The decision not to go to DC this year was a decision not taken lightly. We felt and feel, given the situation in Palestine and Gaza in particular, that we had to take a stand, and that is what we have done. We’ve been, I think, very upfront about that,” reports Breaking News.
“We also have been very clear that the relationship with the United States remains a very important one, and that we need to use every lever that we can to encourage the United States to walk a path of peace, of reconciliation and of peace building in the Middle East, the same approach that we have benefited from here In Ireland,” reports Breaking News.
“And I want to recognise again, the contribution of successive US administrations in forming, in nurturing and in the development of the peace process here. There are moments in life where you take a decision and you make a stand, and it was such a moment for us. I know that our friends in the United States understand why we took this decision, and I also know that we will continue to work constructively with everybody,” reports Breaking News.
“But anyone who has watched now since the St Patrick’s Day events in the Oval Office, events as they have unfolded in Gaza and also on the West Bank, can be in no doubt that a stance has to be taken as regards Israeli impunity, international law has to be respected, decency and fairness and human rights need to be re-established, and we think the United States can have a really constructive role in that,” reports Breaking News.
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