Sinn Fein's new Belfast Lord Mayor

Tonight the new Lord Mayor of Belfast will take up office and according to newspaper reports it will be Orla Nic Biorna.

Orla Nic Biorna (McBurney) replaced Janice Austin

Back on 14 September 2017 Ogra Shinn Fein, also known as Republican Youth, issued a statement about austerity and the spokesperson was Orla McBurney.

Move forward a few weeks and she was co-opted on to Belfast City Council to replace the veteran Sinn Fein councillor Janice Austin but in the meantime Orla McBurney had become Orla Nic Biorna.  I have avoided using the fadas because they appear in different places in different Sinn Fein publications.

Orla was educated at Colaiste Feirste, the Irish-medium secondary school in West Belfast and says that she has been a Sinn Fein activist since the age of 16.

She is now 19 and a student at St Mary's University College, also in West Belfast.  Moreover as an Irish language activist she will use her new position to press the Sinn Fein demand for an Irish Language Act.

However I did note that her Facebook page, where she reports on her work as a councillor, is written in English, presumably so that her constituents in West Belfast can understand it.  

Orla is of a new generation that was not involved in the IRA campaign but Sinn Fein representatives can never distance themselves from that murderous past, as the following posts from her Facebook page show.

A diminutive Cllr Orla Nic Biorna beside Gerry Adams,
honouring IRA member Mairead Farrell

Orla's Facebook post hnouring IRA member Pearse Jordan

Now, after being on the council for a matter of months, Orla is set to become Lord Mayor of Belfast and how long will it be before she makes her first oration to glorify an IRA terrorist?