McDonald, Mary Lou (1969-…), became the president of Sinn Féin << shihn fayn >> , an Irish nationalist political party, in February 2018. Sinn Féin has long been allied with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) . The IRA is a group that has long sought to unite the country of Ireland with Northern Ireland , a political division of the United Kingdom . McDonald succeeded Gerry Adams , who had served as Sinn Féin president since 1983.
McDonald was born in Dublin , the Irish capital, on May 1, 1969. She was raised in the affluent suburb of Rathgar and attended a private school in the nearby suburb of Churchtown. McDonald studied at Trinity College, Dublin , the University of Limerick , and Dublin City University. She married Martin Lanigan, an energy company executive, in 1996. The couple have two children. Mary Lou McDonald joined Sinn Féin in 1998 after having previously been a member of a rival party, Fianna Fáil.
In 2002 and 2007, McDonald ran unsuccessfully for Ireland’s Dáil Éireann, the more powerful of Ireland’s two houses of parliament . She served as a European Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2009. McDonald became vice president of Sinn Féin in 2009. She entered the Dáil in 2011 as a representative of the Dublin Central constituency (voting district). McDonald became the party’s leader in 2018. In early 2020, she led Sinn Féin to broad gains in parliamentary elections. The party had promised to address high rent costs, lengthy hospital waiting times, and an increase in homelessness.
