Griffith, Arthur

Griffith, Arthur (b. 31 Mar. 1871, d. 12 Aug. 1922). Irish journalist and statesman Born in Dublin, he became a printer, but soon was active in republican politics, joining the Gaelic League and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. After a brief stint in South Africa (1896–8), he returned to Ireland to edit The United Irishman. In 1904 he published The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland, arguing for passive resistance to British rule and the establishment of a native Irish government and judicial system. In 1905 he developed these separatist ideas under the banner Sinn Féin (‘we ourselves’), emphasizing national self-reliance. This threw him into direct opposition to John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party in Westminster, and to those who supported the Home Rule Bill of 1912. Griffith did not take part in the Easter Rising of 1916, but was imprisoned under martial law for his republican journalism and remained in Reading gaol until 1917. The reaction to the execution of the Rising's leaders helped Griffith's Sinn Féin become the major republican political movement during the Irish War of Independence. As Acting President of Dáil Éireann (the Irish Parliament, not yet recognized as sovereign), he was the head of the Irish delegation to London to negotiate the end of the war. Unhappy with the treaty of 6 December 1921, which partitioned Ireland, he agreed to it as a temporary settlement that would lead to eventual unification. Griffith became president of Dáil Éireann on 10 January 1922, and in the ensuing civil war led the Free State government against the anti-treaty forces under de Valera until his sudden death in Dublin from a brain haemorrhage.