Siobhán Fenton Gives An Insiders View on Sinn Féin
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What is Siobhán Fenton’s new book and why did she write it?
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Most political parties leak like sieves. We get almost minute by minute reports from the Finafall and Finegale Parliamentary Party meetings, even cabinet meetings at times, information emerges from there even before it is publicly announced. But the one party that never gives out internal information is Sinn Fein. And yet we have a book that's just been published called Ourselves Alone Sinn Fein Behind Closed Doors, and it's written by its former press officer, Siobhan Fenton. Siobhan, thank you very much for taking the time to join us. It's good
to see you, Matt.
Thank you. Does this make you a Sinn Fein whistleblower?
Um, I don't know if I'd quite say that. Um, but certainly I've I've tried to give an account of what it's like to actually be inside Sinn Fein because as you say, there's so much speculation. Um I was particularly aware when I was was a journalist that you know everybody wants to know what's going on inside Sinn Fein because unlike other parties, there aren't the same kind of uh numbers of of leaks um or kind of information sharing that that that goes out. Um and so it's an account of my experience when I kind of left journalism to work for for Sinn Fein from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, while the party was trying to prepare to potentially enter government?
And was this authorized by the party in any way? Or have you surprised them by doing this?
Um so no it wasn't all friends but by the party. It's my own account. Um you know, personally as I re as I've been a j journalist before I went to work for the party and then it's my reflections on on what it was like and kind of being actually inside the party. So what
sort of reaction have you got from party people for actually maybe disclosing things or writing about things that they might not necessarily want to be discussed?
Um so I think um my my approach when when writing the book was very much to focus on information that's you know in the public interest and I think um hopefully readers will say it's a I think a a fair and balanced account of of what it's like. And in particular I've been focusing on um what it was like whenever the party was trying to prepare to enter government and then all of a sudden there was that huge drop in in the polls for for the party towards the end of twenty twenty three when there was the emergence of the the far right and what it was like for at that time really scramble around and adapt to that huge kind of shift in the the political landscape um at at at the time.
Yeah, because you've identified a number of things which I suppose you could say undermined Sinn Fein's support heading into the twenty twenty four general election. An election which I think many of you fancied early on you could win, that you could be the lead party in government if you built on the outcome of the twenty twenty general election. And you n you go through a number of issues, including what Mary Lou MacDonald said about bringing the on property prices in Dublin, uh issues in relation to the Sinn Fein position on the referendums on the family and on the home. But in particular you really do focus on the immigration issue. Do you regard that as being the single biggest reason why Sinn Fein lost support?
Um, I think that that was definitely one of the the major issues that really caused the sort of culture within politics at that time to change because
How does the book reveal Sinn Féin’s internal secrecy compared to other parties?
Of course, one of the reasons why Chin Finn had been so successful in the twenty twenty general election was there was so much anger around the the housing crisis. Um and I think people were really feeling that, you know, a across the the state that, you know, house prices were out of c control. And um in particular at that time the anger was very much focused on the the government, the sense of the government failing to act and resolve those issues. But I think as time went on, particularly during the COVID pandemic lockdowns.
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