text: O'Neill automatically relinquished her office following Paul Givan's resignation as first minister on 3 February 2022. Sinn Féin became the largest party after the 2022 Assembly election, putting O'Neill in line for the position of First Minister of Northern Ireland; however she did not take up the position until two years later because the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refused to nominate a deputy First Minister, citing its opposition to the Northern Ireland Protocol. On 3 February 2024, O'Neill was appointed First Minister of Northern Ireland. This marked the first time that an Irish nationalist has held the title of First Minister in Northern Ireland.
  Early life
  O'Neill was born in Fermoy, a town in County Cork, Republic of Ireland. She comes from an Irish republican family in Clonoe, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Her father Brendan Doris was a Provisional IRA prisoner and Sinn Féin councillor. Her uncle Paul Doris is a former national president of the Irish Northern Aid Committee (NORAID). A cousin, Tony Doris, was one of three IRA members killed in an ambush by the Special Air Service in 1991. Another cousin, IRA volunteer Gareth Malachy Doris, was shot and wounded during the 1997 Coalisland attack.
  O'Neill attended St. Patrick's Girls' Academy, a Catholic grammar school in Dungannon, Tyrone. She subsequently began to train as an accounting technician, before pursuing a political career.
  Political career