Mary Lou McDonald: A Republican Riddle

A biography of the Sinn Fé in leader, and Taoiseach in waiting, Mary Lou McDonald. Mary Lou McDonald is the bookies' favourite to be Ireland's next Taoiseach. She would be the first woman to reach the office, and the first Sinn Fé in leader ever to enter government in the Republic of Ireland. But how did a quintessentially bourgeois woman end up as the leader of a political party with such a recent terrorist past? And was her change of allegiance from Fianna Fá il to Sinn Fé in ideological or opportunistic? Shane Ross's scrupulously fair and balanced biography illuminates McDonald's political awakening, her relationship with the hard men of the IRA, and the evolution and future of Sinn Fé in.

Shane Ross has been a stockbroker, a journalist, a politician and an author. He was Business Editor of the Sunday Independent for over sixteen years, and a member of the Seanad for 29 years before taking a Dá il seat in 2011. In 2016, he became Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, serving in government for over four years.