Article Outline
Sinn Fein (Irish Gaelic, “ourselves alone”), Irish nationalist political party whose goal has been to end the United Kingdom’s control over any part of Ireland and to create a unified Irish state. Sinn Fein is often characterized as the political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a paramilitary organization.
The political ideas and objectives of Sinn Fein were first outlined by Irish journalist Arthur Griffith in 1905. The first Sinn Fein party (1905-1917) was a pacifist, politically insignificant party that relied primarily on the journalism of Griffith to gain support for its nationalist ideas. Foremost among these were his advocacy of a protected Irish economy, which would enable native Irish industry to flourish, and a dual monarchy, in which the British monarch would be crowned in Dublin as the king or queen of the Kingdom of Ireland. Ireland would have its own parliament in Dublin, autonomous of the British, while the two kingdoms would remain united under the British-Irish monarch.
Griffith’s ideas failed to attract widespread support, but the 1916 Easter Rebellion transformed the party. During that uprising, Irish nationalists captured the city of Dublin before being overwhelmed and captured by British troops.
Sinn Fein had no official connection with the violence of the unsuccessful 1916 uprising, but it was later associated with the event by the press. Following the capture and execution of the leaders of the uprising, Sinn Fein became the focus for political activity protesting against British rule in Ireland and successfully contested a series of by-elections for seats in the British Parliament. In 1917 members of Sinn Fein met and officially adopted a republican platform, which spelled out the party’s primary goal as the establishment of a free, united Irish Republic. With this, the two factions of revolutionary protest in Ireland, those who wanted reform by political means and those who wanted reform by military means, fused within the party’s ranks.
This revolutionary and republican Sinn Fein party (1917-1921) was led by one of the leaders of the Easter Rebellion, Eamon de Valera. Sinn Fein’s popularity was further enhanced by the British threat in 1917 and 1918 to introduce conscription (compulsory military service) in Ireland to support Britain’s efforts against Germany in World War I (1914-1918). Sinn Fein, in conjunction with other Irish nationalist bodies and the Roman Catholic Church, organized an anticonscription campaign that gained huge popular support. The 1918 general election confirmed Sinn Fein’s popularity. Outside of the six northeastern counties of Ulster, an area which, being primarily Protestant and loyal to Britain, was against unification with the rest of Ireland, Sinn Fein won 73 out of a possible 105 Irish seats in the British Parliament. In January 1919 Sinn Fein declared Ireland to be independent from Britain, established its own parliament in Dublin (the Dáil Éireann), and formed its own administration. From 1919 the paramilitary Irish Volunteers, later the Irish Republican Army, gave allegiance to the Dáil and waged the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) against British forces in Ireland. See also Irish Revolution.
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