A New Leader For Ireland's Sinn Fein, But Will It Be A New Era?
Mary Lou McDonald represents a new generation and could appeal to a wider range of voters in Ireland — but critics warn she's still inextricably tied to many of her party's hard-line policies.
When the new president of Sinn Fein took the podium at a recent political rally, she acknowledged she'll never fully replace her predecessor and mentor.
"The truth is, my friends, I won't fill Gerry's shoes," Mary Lou McDonald told a crowd in Belfast last month. "But the news is that I brought my own."
She was referring to Gerry Adams, an Irish political heavyweight who recently retired after almost 35 years as leader of Sinn Fein, a political party that campaigns for a united Ireland. Critics see Sinn Fein as the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, a paramilitary organization that waged a long
