Review: Mary Lou McDonald biography

This account of the rise of the Sinn Féin president struggles to consider that she might be her own woman rather than a political puppet, says Katy Hayward.

The World Today
4 minute READ

Mary Lou McDonald: A Republican Riddle
Shane Ross, Atlantic Books, £16.99
 
The front cover of Mary Lou McDonald is a photograph taken in 2017 at the funeral of Martin McGuinness, the former IRA commander and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. McDonald is pictured in the centre, carrying the coffin. McGuinness’s successor, Michelle O’Neill, is in front and Gerry Adams is behind her. It is Adams’s face which is in sharp focus, while McDonald’s is quite blurred. Although odd, it is evident to the reader as to why this might be. 

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