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Article: Fianna Fail: Who's the real party animal? ; If the Fianna Fail party organises here, what would it mean for the SDLP and Sinn Fein? By Maurice Hayes
- Article from:
- Belfast Telegraph
- Article date:
- May 15, 2008
CopyrightCopyright 2008 Belfast Telegraph. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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If so, SDLP approach the encounter not in the first flush of
youth, but rather as a widow who has lost her man and is in need of
support. The man in this case, to extend the metaphor, is the
combined leadership who over three decades kept the light of decency
from going out in Northern Ireland politics, and who at great
personal cost maintained a space in which democratic politics could
eventually begin to flourish.
The founding fathers, for all their qualities, did not produce a
successor generation and the party, doubtful of its future, divided
on its choice with uncertain leadership and lacking a central
organising structure. Most of all it lacks a solid base in Belfast.
It can only be a ...