The DUP, Northern Ireland’s largest pro-UK party, came second to Sinn Féin in the region’s elections, held in May 2022, with its MP Emma Little-Pengelly drafted into the post of deputy first minister. The positions have equal legal status with neither able to function without the other.
Gerry Adams, a former Sinn Fein president, was among those in the public gallery for the ceremony and was joined by Fiachra McGuinness, son of the late former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness, who served alongside staunch unionist Ian Paisley following the Good Friday accord, which ended three decades of conflict known as The Troubles.
Both of the women have family links to the region’s troubled past, with O’Neill’s father an IRA prisoner during the conflict involving republican paramilitaries fighting to reunite Ireland, loyalist paramilitaries battling to remain in the UK, and British security forces.
Little-Pengelly’s father was convicted in Paris in 1991 for his role in a loyalist gun-running plot, but has denied having been an arms-buyer.
Despite Sinn Fein’s victory at the 2022 election, a series of opinion polls have since found the people of Northern Ireland would still vote decisively against a united Ireland if there was a referendum, with a survey in the Irish Times last year finding almost twice as many voters who expressed a preference want to remain in the United Kingdom.
The Good Friday Agreement states that the British government should call a referendum if it “appears likely” a majority would want a united Ireland. A concurrent poll must also be held in the Republic of Ireland.
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