Sinn Fein VP Michelle O’Neill became first minister in the government that under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord shares power between Northern Ireland’s two main communities.
An Irish nationalist made history Saturday by becoming Northern Ireland’s first minister as the government returned to work after a two-year boycott by unionists.
Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill was nominated as first minister in the government that under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace accord shares power between Northern Ireland’s two main communities — British unionists who want to stay in the U.K., and Irish nationalists who seek to unite with Ireland. Northern Ireland was established as a unionist, Protestant-majority part of the U.K. in 1921, following independence for the Republic of Ireland.
„The days of second-class citizenship are long gone. Today confirms that they are never coming back,“ O’Neill said. „As an Irish republican, I pledge cooperation and genuine honest effort with those colleagues who are British, of a unionist tradition, and who cherish the Union. This is an assembly for all – Catholic, Protestant and dissenter.“
Neither side can govern without agreement from the other. Government business ground to a half over the past two years after the Democratic Unionist Party walked out to protest trade issues related to Brexit.
