Sinn féin,
sinn féin amháin, "ourselves, ourselves alone" goes the Irish
expression referring to information and other activities which
are for us to keep and do among ourselves, and NOT to be shared
with strangers, most especially not with English foreigners.
In 1902, Arthur Griffith, Editor of the United Irishman,
presented to the third annual convention of Cumann na nGaedheal
the most revolutionary political idea since the fall of Parnell;
it was that the elected Irish Members of Parliament should
refuse to sit in Westminster, demand reinstitution of the Irish
Parliament of 1782, and pledge allegiance only to a king of
Ireland, not to the King of England. While the Liberator, Daniel
O'Connell, had once considered such unilateral action, he had
not forced the issue. Griffith provided a strategy of passive
resistance by turning an assembly of Irish MPs into a de facto
constitutional convention. Modeled on Frank Deak's policy, which
resulted in the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary in 1867,
Griffith serialized his abstentionist program in the United
Irishman as the Resurrection of Hungary, and then published it
as a pamphlet and distributed it widely in 1904. The direct
result of this idea was the formation of Sinn Féin on 28th
November 1905, as an abstentionist political party, with
internal self-reliance as its principal plank, pledging never to
recognize or use the services or forces of the enemy. The
founders of Sinn Féin were Arthur Griffith, Seán T. O'Kelly,
Bulmer Hobson, Countess Markiewicz and Seán Mac Diarmada. In
addition to contesting a Parliamentary election in North Lietrim
in 1907, Sinn Féin was also active locally, electing a number of
men to county councils and other local bodies.
Historian, lecturer, Conradh na Gaeilge president and Radio Free
Erin (public service broadcasting) commentator Nollaig Ó Gadhra
points out that the big change in Sinn Féin came in the Árd
Fheis of 1915, when the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) under
the guidance of Michael Collins, caused Sinn Fein to change its
policy from monarchist to republican abstention. After the
Rising, Sinn Féin adopted an election manifesto for all
elections, insisting upon the Irish Republic Proclaimed on
Easter Monday, 1916. Éamonn deValera, campaigning in an Irish
Volunteer uniform, was elected from East Clare in June 1917. At
the Árd Fheis of Sinn Féin in October 1917, Arthur Griffith
graciously stepped down from President to Vice President of Sinn
Féin, to allow the election of deValera, who, after the death on
hunger strike of Thomas Ashe, was the senior surviving
Commandant from 1916.
This was the Sinn Féin which contested the general election of
14 December 1918, promising to NOT represent their constituents
or their country in the mighty Westminster Parliament in London,
but rather to set up, without foreign let or hindrance, a
republican assembly which would form an Irish government for
Ireland. Sinn Féin won over 79% of the popular vote in all
Ireland, and 73 of 105 seats, in what can only be described as a
plebiscite for independence. The delegates who assembled in the
Mansion House in Dublin formed the First Dáil Éireann and issued
the Irish Declaration of Independence on 21 January 1919
(legally the equivalent of the American Declaration of
Independence by the Second Continental Congress, promulgated on
the 4th of July 1776). That Easter Monday, 1916 is regarded as
the significant date is a consequence of the pre-existing Army
Council of the Irish Republican Army - Óglaigh na hÉireann (the
IRA) insisting upon the First Dáil Éireann recognizing the Irish
Republic proclaimed in arms in 1916, as a condition for the IRA
coming under the authority of the government formed by the First
Dáil Éireann. [See also Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic
(New York, 1965).]
The
democratic voice of the Irish people had spoken (vox populi, vox
Dei), and their elected representatives sought the recognition
of their national self-determination as promised by American
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, on which basis the
Armistice ending the Great War on 11 November 1918, had been
accepted by the Central Powers. Ireland was denied recognition
and a seat at the Versailles peace conference. The ensuing
conflict between the forces of the Imperial Government in London
and the Irish Republic has become known to history as the "Black
and Tan War" (1919-1921). But, the military lessons of Dublin
1916 having been studied in the internment camp of Frongoch, the
forces of the Irish Republic waged an asymmetrical conflict
against the alien forces of occupation. Modern guerilla warfare
entered on to the twentieth century. England, though still in
control of many strong points, could no longer coerce Ireland
into remaining within her empire. A Second (Republican) Dáil
Éireann came together in August 1921 (124 Sinn Féin and 4
Unionist members). Nollaig Ó Gadhra, in Civil War in Connacht
(Cork & Dublin: Mercier Press, 1999), points out that the Sinn
Féin delegates regarded their mandate to be as Teachta Dála
Éireann (TDÉ), that is, deputies to the assembly of all Ireland
(not just 26 counties, as presumed by the British Government of
Ireland Act, 23 December 1920 - for which no Irishman voted).
There was a truce, and a delegation sent to negotiate a peace
was sent to London. This delegation, under the threat of
"immediate and terrible war," and without referring the text to
the government of the Irish Republic in Dublin, signed Articles
of Agreement [The Treaty] on 6 December 1921. The "Treaty" was
accepted by a vote of 64 ton 57 on 7 January 1922 (Brian
O'Higgins in more than one issue of the Wolfe Tone Annual
pointed out that only three of the delegates accepted it on its
merits, the remainder who voted for it said it would be a
"steppingstone to the Republic" - all of the women TDs voted
against the Treaty). The issue was to be referred to the people
in a general election on 16 June 1922, by a "Pact" between
Éamonn deValera and Michael Collins (negotiated by Harry Boland)
there was to be a coalition "Panel" government of pro- and
anti-Treaty members, whichever faction dominated. The Republican
Second Dáil was to reassemble on 30 June 1922, under its Ceann
Comhairle, who would then summon the new Third Dáil. Brian
O'Higgins points out that, on 28 June, at the instigation of
Winston Churchill, the Provisional Government of the Free State
attacked the Republican (Army) Executive in the Four Courts,
thus seizing power through a coup d'état, precipitating civil
war. The Second Dáil Éireann never met to dissolve itself in
1922. The Republican political leader, deValera, was the
President of Sinn Féin. After the deaths of Griffith and
Collins, on 12 and 22 August respectively, the political
leadership of the Free State fell to William Cosgrave, who,
having abandoned the Republic, did not call his party Sinn Féin,
but Cumann na nGaedheal (later Fine Gael).
When, in 1926, deValera, sensing the opportunity to wrest power
from Cosgrave, wanted to be able to enter the 26-County Dáil of
the Free State (the creation of the British government) should
he gain a majority of TDs, he was forced to form Fianna Fáil, a
new party, with a new name, for that purpose. In 1929, in
Leinster House, deValera, stating that he was not saying the
same thing as he had said in 1922, acknowledged that "there are
people outside this house who can claim the same legitimacy as
we can," but who differ on the road to be taken to the Republic.
Those people were Sinn Féin, the IRA and Tom Maguire and the
other surviving members of the Republican Second Dáil Éireann.
In 1937, under deValera, the 26-County state (still the fruit of
the poison tree - to use a legal explanation of the pedigree of
the mutated descendant of the 26-County Irish Free State enacted
by the Westminster Parliament and imposed by collaborators
politically analogous to the later Vichy government in that part
of France not immediately occupied by the Nazis in 1940) adopted
the "Éire" constitution, which was republican in form, but
allowed the continued Partition of Ireland (while claiming
sovereignty over "the entire island of Ireland, its islands and
territorial seas" - an article later dispensed with).
Seán Mac Bride, then Chief of Staff of the IRA, feeling that he
could work within this framework, resigned, but did not call his
new political party Sinn Féin, but Clann na Poblachta.
Republican Sinn Féin former Donegal Councilor Joe O'Neill points
out that before Mac Bride's acceptance of the 1937 constitution
the alienation of the mass of the people from the Free State
could be seen in the fact that the majority of the eligible
26-County electorate boycotted the general elections altogether.
In 1938, the surviving members of the Second Dáil Éireann, the
legitimate government of the Irish Republic, dissolved itself
(in accordance with a 1921 Dáil statute requiring it to do so
should its membership be in danger of falling below seven),
passing the mantle of legitimacy to the Army Council of the
Irish Republican Army. Sinn Féin continued as the abstentionist
Republican party, remaining loyal to the Irish Republic
Proclaimed in arms on Easter Monday, 1916, ratified by the Irish
electorate in 1918 and established by the First Dáil Éireann in
1919.
In 1950 the torch was passed by Sinn Féin President Máire
Buckley to a new generation of Republicans. Sinn Féin was
reorganized and new leaders emerged, among them Seán Cronin, Joe
Murphy, Tomás Mac Curtain, Gearóid Mangan, Tom Doyle, Charles
Murphy, Paddy McLogan and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh. Sinn Féin, still
abstentionist, contested elections. On May 6, 1955, two Sinn
Féin (abstentionist) candidates were elected to the Westminster
Parliament: Tom Mitchel for Mid-Ulster, and Phil Clarke for
Fermanagh-South Tyrone. Both men were disqualified by the
British as "convicted felons" (read: political prisoners or
prisoners of war). Mitchel ran again in a bye-election August,
tripling his margin of victory; again he was disqualified. A
third election in May 1956 saw him defeated after another
so-called "nationalist" was persuaded to enter and siphon off
enough votes to elect a Unionist. Sinn Féin had demonstrated the
existence strong Republican/anti-Partition sentiment in those
six of the divided Irish Province of Ulster's nine counties
known as "Northern Ireland." Another consequence of Sinn Féin's
activity was to demonstrate to the world the denial of democracy
by the British government in the 6-County statelet. [See also J.
Boyer Bell, The Secret Army (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press,
1979).]
The next step in the quest for national re-unification
(inspired, in part, by the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against
Soviet occupation) was the IRA campaign of December 1956 -
February 1962. In the March 5, 1957 26-County general election
Sinn Féin elected abstentionist TDs in each Province: in
Leinster, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh; in Ulster, Eunian O'Hanlon (brother
of Fergal, killed in action at Brokeborough RUC Barracks on New
Year's night); in Connacht, John Joe McGirl; in Munster, John
Joe Rice, garnering some 65,640 first preference votes in some
nineteen constituencies. Again the political point was made.
In the 1960s there was an attempt by Marxists with an
internationalist agenda to infiltrate the Irish Republican
movement. When pogroms and the violent suppression of the civil
rights movement in the "North" led to a cry for Republican
support, the Marxists were found wanting. During the winter of
1969/1970 another split occurred in the movement; it was
reflected in Sinn Féin, the Marxists-Leninists-Stalinists (in
possession of the Gardiner Street office - thereby calling
themselves "Officials") sought to end abstentionism. The
traditional Republicans, agreeing with Commandant General Tom
Maguire, sole surviving member of the Republican Second Dáil
Éireann, that they had "neither the right nor the authority" to
end abstentionism, gave their allegiance to the Provisional Army
Council. The traditional Republicans of Sinn Féin (including Joe
Clarke of 1916 fame) set up offices at 2a Lower Kevin Street in
Dublin. The so-called "Official Sinn Féin" (the "Stickies")
withdrew from even nominal support of an armed struggle they
could not control in 1972, and later had a name change to the
Workers Party, then the Democratic Left, and their remnant are
now to be found in the Irish Labour Party.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh was elected President of Sinn Féin ("Kevin
Street," later "Provisional" Sinn Féin, later Sinn Féin
(subsequently Republican Sinn Féin)) and maintained the
allegiance to the bright dream of Pádraic Pearse and the men of
1916, and to the traditional Republican abstentionist policy. As
the political party of the Irish Republican movement, Sinn Féin
not only supported the struggle to end English occupation of
Ireland, but also, in 1971, proposed a vision for a New Ireland,
based on the principle of subsidiarity and self-reliance,
grounded in Ireland's ancient past but using the latest
democratic political and economic analyses to help restore, as
Sinn Féin Vice President Daithí Ó Conaill put it, "the ancient
prosperity of Ireland." Promulgated through the efforts of Seán
Ó Brádaigh and the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau, and later
by Éamonn Mac Thomáis, as Editor of An Poblacht, it was the Éire
Nua plan, which would reunify Ulster as one of four Provinces,
each with its own devolved government, while incorporating a
Charter of Liberties (analogous to the American "Bill of
Rights") which would assure the religious and civil liberties of
all of the people of Ireland, in the spirit of the Proclamation
of 1916. [See also William Irwin Thompson, The Imagination of an
Insurrection, Dublin, Easter 1916: A Study of an Ideological
Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967).]
Dissident elements, swayed by the siren song of potential
political power in a Partition government, from time to time
proposed the abandonment of abstentionism. Lifelong Republican
and Irish Northern Aid co-founder Michael Flannery said to one
such group who told him that they might elect four TDs and hold
the balance of power in Dublin, that "if was not right for us to
go into Leinster House with 44 TDs in 1926, it is certainly not
right for you to go in with only 4." Ed Moloney, in A Secret
History of the IRA (New York & London: W.W. Norton & Company,
2002), very accurately describes how a radical, Northern,
power-hungry clique secretly manoeuvred to wrest control of Sinn
Féin from the veteran leadership, and lead it away from its
traditional policies, including abstentionism, in the process.
One major difference from most other defections (except the
initial "Stickies") was that they sought to retain the name of
Sinn Féin, whilst abandoning its principles.
In 1985/86 Republican Sinn Féin / Sinn Féin Poblachtach,
re-organized under the leadership of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and
Daithí Ó Conaill, and continues in the tradition of the Sinn
Féin which embraced the 1916 Rising and elected the deputies
which formed the First Dáil Éireann. The adjective Republican
was added to demonstrate the continuity with 1916, continued
abstentionist opposition to the Partition of Ireland and to
highlight the contrast with any other party or organization
which might seek to trade on the good name of Sinn Féin. The
Éire Nua plan continues as a vibrant part of the program of
Republican Sinn Féin under the leadership of An Uachtarán
(President) Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, re-confirmed at the 100th Árd
Fheis of Republican Sinn Féin in November 2004.
***
In America, Cumann na Saoirse was independently organized in
1986, by Michael Flannery, George Harrison, Joe Stynes (of Clan
na Gael) and others, to keep the Fenian Faith and further bright
dream of the men of 1916.
