For Siobhán Fenton, the dream of Sinn Féin taking power and leading a progressive left-wing government fell apart the day she was out canvassing in Dublin and felt a sharp, cold sting on her neck.
She was in the hallway of a block of flats in the inner city, knocking on doors, and looked around to see where it came from. Fenton, who worked as a media adviser to party leader Mary Lou McDonald, felt another sting on her shoulder, then one more on her forearm.
They were coins, thrown from a balcony above, where a man’s voice was shouting. “Sinn Féin traitors!” he yelled. “Mary Lou Mohammad! Ireland is full!”
It was May 2024, and instead of cruising toward victory in the local and European elections—widely seen as a sure thing, with a historic win in the general election expected to follow—the party was facing a backlash driven by anti-immigrant feeling in what had usually been a stronghold of working-class support.
The coins left Fenton with cuts and bruises that hinted at the electoral defeat to come.
“By the time the party realised how bad things had got, it was almost too late,” she said. “The far right had moved into lots of Sinn Féin strongholds and we hadn’t noticed.”
In a break from the party’s reputation for secrecy and tight discipline, Fenton has written a rare insider’s account, titled Ourselves Alone: Sinn Féin Behind Closed Doors.
It reveals the inside story of a disaster that caught the party off guard on its path to power. Instead of winning the general election and speeding up the campaign for Irish unification by pushing for a referendum, the party stumbled and remains in opposition today.
It’s a warning for progressive movements across Europe and elsewhere that struggle to balance welcoming immigrants and refugees with public demands for tougher action on new arrivals.
A rise in xenophobia among grassroots supporters took party leaders by surprise and, for a time, left them unable to act, Fenton said in an interview. “There was a moment of genuine panic and just not knowing what to do. We were struggling to adapt because it felt like things had started to spiral out of control.”
The book, published this week, paints a picture of a party that is mostly well-meaning but clumsy, and it also offers an account from a member of an organisation that many see as secretive and still influenced by former IRA leaders on both sides of the Irish border—a view Fenton rejects.
Fenton, 34, was an unusual “Shinner,” the informal name for party supporters. She came from a middle-class Belfast family that hated the violence of the Troubles and backed constitutional nationalism rather than hardline republicanism.
Fenton briefly worked for the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) before studying English literature at Oxford, researching gender-based violence at Cambridge, and becoming a London-based journalist for the Independent. She returned to Northern Ireland in 2016, where she did freelance work for the BBC and other outlets, including the Guardian, and wrote a book on the Good Friday agreement.
In early 2020, Sinn Féin offered Fenton a job in Dublin. The party was riding high. It had just won 24.5% of first-preference votes in the Irish general election, overtaking Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two centrist parties that had taken turns in power for a century.
As successor to Gerry Adams, McDonald—a Dubliner known to everyone as Mary Lou—offered a fresh alternative, especially to young voters who blamed the political establishment for the housing crisis.
Sinn Féin had run too few candidates to make the most of its breakthrough, so Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael managed to get enough seats to form a coalition, leaving Sinn Féin in opposition. Analysts expected it to win power after the next election.One day, I’ll tell you what’s happening and why it matters. Enter your email to sign up. After the newsletter promotion.
After Sinn Féin became the largest party in Northern Ireland in 2022, which led to Michelle O’Neill becoming first minister at Stormont, the pressure fell on the party’s southern branch to make sure McDonald became taoiseach at Leinster House. “Don’t mess it up,” a colleague from Belfast half-jokingly told Fenton.
For three years, after moving to Dublin, Fenton felt the excited nervousness of a party climbing in the polls while the ruling coalition lost support. The republican motto – “tiocfaidh ár lá,” meaning our day will come – seemed fitting.
A section called “the long fall” describes how things started to go wrong amid mistakes and an unpredictable public mood.
McDonald seemed to blame the police for a riot that shook Dublin in November 2023, and worried middle-class property owners by suggesting that average house prices in Dublin should drop to €300,000. More damaging was the party’s failure to handle growing xenophobia, fueled by a housing shortage, a cost of living crisis, an influx of migrants and refugees, and far-right activity on social media and the streets.
“It was a blind spot,” said Fenton. She explained that Covid-19 restrictions and a focus on parliamentary work weakened grassroots connections, leaving leaders unaware of how widespread conspiracy theories and hostility toward Muslims had become.
Fenton said the party should have fought racist narratives by getting people away from their phones and having “really difficult conversations.” She added, “Go door to door, talk about community worries, but be very, very clear that blaming immigrants and refugees is the wrong approach.”
Instead of making gains in the May 2024 local and European elections, the falling coins Fenton described signaled a big loss of support, especially in working-class strongholds where people called McDonald a “traitor” for not pushing for stricter limits on migration. Months later, the party struggled through a general election that kept Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in power.
Fenton’s contract wasn’t renewed, and she went back to her hometown of Belfast, where she now works as a writer and analyst. She is no longer a member of Sinn Féin.
Immigration remains a tricky issue for a party caught between those wanting a tougher approach and those favoring solidarity, said Fenton. Leaders might be tempted to avoid the issue until the next election and then take a position, she said. “It will depend on what the political landscape looks like at that time.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Here is a list of FAQs based on the topic ranging from beginner to advanced levels
General Background
1 What is this article about
Its about how farright groups and online rhetoric used the term traitors against Sinn Féin and how that campaign combined with other factors hurt the partys chances of forming a government in recent Irish elections
2 Who are Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a major political party in Ireland They are leftwing and historically linked to the IRA but in recent years they have focused on housing costofliving and health issues
3 What does traitors mean in this context
Farright commentators and online agitators used the word traitors to accuse Sinn Féin of betraying Irish nationalism They claimed the party had abandoned its republican roots by compromising on issues like immigration and policing
4 I thought Sinn Féin was popular Why didnt they get into power
They topped the popular vote in the 2020 general election and were leading in polls but they couldnt find coalition partners Other parties refused to work with them The farright rhetoric made this refusal easier by painting Sinn Féin as a security risk or a fringe party
The FarRight The Rhetoric
5 How exactly did farright rhetoric derail them
It did three things
Scared off moderate voters It made Sinn Féin look unstable and extreme to people who might have voted for them on housing issues
Blocked coalition talks Mainstream parties used the traitor narrative as an excuse not to negotiate claiming Sinn Féin couldnt be trusted
Created streetlevel chaos Farright protests outside politicians homes and events made Sinn Féin look like they couldnt control public order which hurt their party of government image
6 What specific issues did the farright attach the traitor label to
The main one was
