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When I watched Michelle O'Neill become the new first minister of Northern Ireland,

what I thought was remarkable was how little fuss there was about it.

I thought back to the conversation had had with her here on political thinking back in 2021

about her roots, about coming from her family, steeped in the blood and the trauma of what

is euphemistically called the Troubles.

The Troubles, let's remember, led to the deaths of more than 3,500 people over 30 years.

That is the equivalent of over 100,000 people if the bombing and the shootings had happened on the mainland in Britain.

What makes Michelle O'Neill so remarkable is that her father was an IRA man, interned in prison at the height of the troubles.

Her cousin was shot by the security services.

Back in 2021 when we spoke, she was deputy to a unionist first minister Arlene Foster, whose own father

and RUC police officer had been shot, shot through the door of the family home by the IRA, his daughter watched as he crawled into

the kitchen, covered in blood.

It is these stories that reveal how far Northern Ireland has come. It should perhaps be a cause of celebration that the elevation of Michelle O'Neill is no longer seen as remarkable.

It explains the significance though, a people referring to her as the first Republican to lead

Northern Ireland.

She's also the first nationalist to lead it. The first in other words

who wants to see the border disappear between North and South and Ireland united in her lifetime.

I'm hoping to talk to her again on political thinking about how she sees the future, but in

the meantime I thought it was worthwhile revisiting part of our previous conversation recorded during lockdown

which tells you so much about why Michelle O'Neill matters whether you live in Belfast or Birmingham, Bangor or Bampf.

So I was born in 1977, so you're born right into the, I suppose, the height of the conflict and, you know,

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