In a Northern Ireland steeped in its past, Michelle O'Neill has a vision for the future

MICHELLE O'NEILL WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO be here. When the Northern Ireland Assembly was established following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended 30 years of sectarian bloodshed known as the Troubles, it established a delicate system of power sharing.

- YASMEEN SERHAN

Traditionally Protestant British unionists, who wanted to preserve Northern Ireland's status within the U.K., and traditionally Catholic Irish nationalists, who aspired to reunify with the independent Republic of Ireland, would govern together. Still, no one imagined that anyone other than a unionist might one day hold its top office.

And yet here stands O'Neill, a 47-year-old Catholic woman and the first nationalist leader of a province she one day hopes to abolish. "The north of Ireland was built in such a way that someone from my background would never be First Minister," says O'Neill, whose party Sinn Féin was the former political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

But O'Neill doesn't want to be seen as a nationalist leader. Rather, she has billed herself as a "First Minister for all" who will represent everyone equally. She has won plaudits for her willingness to transcend sectarian divides by going where no previous Sinn Féin leader has gone before, like attending royal events. In a society as steeped in history as Northern Ireland, O'Neill says this inclusive style of politics is necessary to ensure the continued success of the Good Friday Agreement and the political arrangement it helped create. This hasn't always been a given: Northern Ireland's devolved government has been functional for less than 60% of its existence, says political sociologist Katy Hayward, owing to the fact that it requires the cooperation of both nationalist and unionist parties to work. If one side opts against participating-as has been the case on numerous occasions-the whole system collapses. O'Neill, who shares equal power with Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), is committed to ensuring that their administration lasts.