When Northern Ireland’s lawmakers returned to their jobs Saturday for the first time in two years, only one politician received applause: Michelle O’Neill. The Cork-born official, whose father was imprisoned for being an IRA member and whose party wants Ireland and Northern Ireland to be one nation, became the historic choice for first minister. Until now, the government’s highest political office has always been held by a unionist politician who supported staying in the United Kingdom, the New York Times reports. “That such a day would ever come would have been unimaginable to my parents’ and…