There is a sense that one more heavy punch will see it on the canvas hoping that it can get back up before the count completes. In the run up to an election, the party is facing the type of cross examination a deeply unpopular government, rather than the opposition, is subject to. What has kept it on its feet up to this point has been one strong performance by its leader who in the Dail yesterday used skillful ringcraft followed by an uppercut that will have stung but was not forceful enough to even the score. Her critics in Leinster House remain well ahead on points and have no intention of throwing in the towel. McDonald can only hope there are no further rounds to come.
Her performance was all the more remarkable because, as has been pointed out by a friend, the scandals gripping the party took place on her watch while she was not watching for what may have been understandable reasons. She was ill, her husband was ill and her father died. The strength of character she put out there has shown why she is party leader while others are a country mile behind. This perhaps explains why she was not instructed by the party to take compassionate leave during her travails. Primus inter pares, her shoes fit no one else. Aggregated, it all augurs darkly for the party if her position as leader ever comes under threat.
Her performance was all the more remarkable because, as has been pointed out by a friend, the scandals gripping the party took place on her watch while she was not watching for what may have been understandable reasons. She was ill, her husband was ill and her father died. The strength of character she put out there has shown why she is party leader while others are a country mile behind. This perhaps explains why she was not instructed by the party to take compassionate leave during her travails. Primus inter pares, her shoes fit no one else. Aggregated, it all augurs darkly for the party if her position as leader ever comes under threat.
I watched many of her leading colleagues face media grilling yesterday. None stepped up to the plate. On message, uninspiring, unconvincing. Usually polished performers like Matt Carty and Louise O'Brien were unusually unsteady as they gripped the safety rail of internal policies and processes while reiterating the new mantra of an abundance of caution. Martin Kenny, despite facing weak opposition in the person of Thomas Byrne, was pedestrian while Claire Kerrane was flat and robotic. Pearse Doherty, this morning, hardly improved matters, his standard forward advances held in check while he played square balls. Mary Lou McDonald was left to do what Diego Maradona found himself compelled to do so often in an Argentina shirt: carry a mediocre and mundane crew over the line.
So, the problem remains. McDonald's combative performance was just that, performative which in terms of combat, was really no more than the firing of blanks, more heat than light.
Many people do not believe either McDonald or her Sinn Fein colleagues, sensing a cover up of Adamsesque proportions. McDonald has to realise just how damaging to party prospects that perception is. The weighty bones of the Adams skeletons were a deadweight on the party's fortunes, as was evident after he had vacated the scene. If the electorate thinks he has stepped back but not down, the party's credibility - which was very much on the up - risks becoming threadbare once again.
If asked in the current climate if she persists in her inane claim to believe Adams when he denies ever having been a member of the organisation of which he was chief of staff, an affirmative answer will expose to ridicule her proclamations of truth and transparency.
The Sinn Fein president needs to seriously confront the reasons the party culture is as it is rather than what the party claims it to be. A different type of party so unlike what went before requires a different type of leader so unlike what went before. Mary Lou cannot be Gerry Lou.
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