From once prominent member of Sinn Féin to resignation

Niall Ó Donnghaile, aged 39, was, at a time, a prominent member of the party, particularly well known in Belfast.

A former lord mayor of the city, he was the youngest person ever appointed to that office when he took up the role in 2011 at the age of 25.

He had only been elected for the first time a fortnight earlier.

A fluent Irish speaker and a politics graduate, he had been a member of Sinn Féin since he was a teenager.

Prior to his election to the city council in 2011, he had been a party press officer at the Stormont Assembly.

Mr Ó Donnghaile is from Short Strand, a nationalist enclave in the predominately unionist east of the city.

His family is steeped in republicanism - his maternal grandfather was on the prison ship, the Al Rawdah, which housed republican internees off the coast of Co Down in 1940.

Mr Ó Donnghaile wore a 'fáinne' pin fashioned from the copper pipework of the ship on the night he was installed as Belfast's first citizen.

After a year in the role of Lord Mayor and four more serving on Belfast City Council in 2016 it was announced he was contesting a Seanad seat.

He said his intention was to be a "loud voice for Irish citizens living in the North".

In 2019 he described the Seanad as a "great platform for national conversations".

He served for four years in the 25th Seanad from 2016 to 2020 and again in the 26th Seanad from 2020 until December 2023 when he was the party's Seanad leader.

On 21 December 2023 Sinn Féin issued a statement on Mr Ó Donnghaile's behalf announcing his intention to resign from the Seanad.

In it, Mr Ó Donnghaile said that since the summer recess he had been unable to attend the Seanad on the advice of his doctor.

"It is unlikely that this situation will change in the short term.

"Therefore I feel the best decision for myself, my family and the party going forward is to resign from the Seanad and step back from public life.

"It has been a great pleasure over the course of many years to first of all serve the people of Short Strand as a councillor, the people of Belfast as Mayor and latterly giving a voice to those in the north in the Seanad.

"But the time is now right for me to step aside from this public role.

"I want to thank all those who have supported me over the years and to my family and friends, particularly in the Short Strand and to my party colleagues for their support during my time in frontline politics."