Louise Byrne

But it's just one of a few remarkable things.

So what was, I guess, kind of leading up before I get into the Ardash, the other remarkable thing is Mary Lee MacDonald not getting her preferred candidate on the Dublin Central by-election ticket.

That was interesting in and of itself.

At the Ardash, I mean, I've been to a few Sinn Féin Ardash and at this stage, on the Friday evening, there was quite a heated debate about fox hunting.

And, you know, there was some parts of the party that were saying that,

They had this kind of big, long, winding motion about, you know, you know, it's traditional rural pursuit and, you know, in the times of Coo Cullen.

And then you had another cohort of the party who were really pushing back against that narrative.

And in the end, the kind of another emotion in the Clore, which was kind of looking to ban fox hunting, was the one that was victorious, despite perhaps more senior party party members and TDs.

calling for fox hunting to be continued and it was it was quite a lively debate it was actually it was funny the fire alarm actually went off at one point and the whole place had to be evacuated and coincidentally of course but you know there was and you had delegates getting up on stage and there's one guy in particular who said that he had registered as a delegate when he went to turn up to the Ardash and he had trouble getting his delegates pass he was trying to be given a members pass which would obviously preclude him from voting and he was giving out about that up on the stage you had another fox hunt

Yeah, it kind of calmed down after that.

The only one other contentious issue, and again, remarkable, really, is that the Arc Corlea, which is, you know, the Sinn Féin kind of governing body, had put forward a motion, which I would have backed this one, that you only have an Ardèche every second year.

And that created absolute pandemonium.

And there was people getting really annoyed about that.

And then that also didn't pass.

So, I mean...

Mary Lee Macdonald made the point yesterday, and actually I do agree with her.

She was saying, you know, people have called us, you know, whatever word in the media for years, secrecy, all this kind of stuff.

And this is democracy working.

And I think that is part of it.

I think this is what happens when you become a bigger party.