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Sinead O’Connor joins Sinn Fein, calls for leadership change

Sinead O'Connor, pictured in 2012. Jason Kempin / Getty Images

DUBLIN — Sinead O’Connor, long a critic of church and state in Ireland, says she’s joining the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party – and wants its leaders to step aside for younger voices free of IRA connections.

The 48-year-old singer, who recently released her 10th album I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss, says Sinn Fein is the only left-wing party able to steer Ireland toward social equality.

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But O’Connor says senior figures Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who oversaw the outlawed Irish Republican Army, should retire. The 66-year-old Adams has led Sinn Fein since 1983.

She told her 518,000 Facebook followers: “There’d be a zillion percent increase in membership of Sinn Fein if the leadership were handed over to those born from 1983-1985 onward and no one associated in people’s minds with frightful things.”

O’Connor later added: “For anyone who is confused, Sinn Fein is no longer associated with the use of violence.”

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