Sinn Féin (shĬn fān) [Irish,=we, ourselves], Irish nationalist movement. It had its roots in the Irish cultural revival at the end of the 19th cent. and the growing nationalist disenchantment with the constitutional Home Rule movement. The founder (1900) was Arthur Griffith, who in 1899 established the first of the patriotic journals, The United Irishman, in which he advocated complete national self-reliance. The movement was not, at first, an overtly political one, nor did it advocate violence. Its method was, rather, one of passive resistance to all things English and included an attempted revival of Irish Gaelic.

In 1905, Sinn Féin was organized politically, but until the outbreak of World War I it gained little strength. The British suppression of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 greatly stimulated its growth. In 1917 many of its leaders, released from internment, met to reorganize under the leadership of Eamon De Valera. In the election of 1918, Sinn Féin put up a candidate for every Irish seat in the British Parliament and won 73 seats. To protest British rule over Ireland, the elected members declined to go to Westminster. Instead, they set up an Irish assembly in Dublin, called the Dáil Éireann, which declared Irish independence. The British attempted to suppress terrorists, led by Michael Collins, by a policy of counterterror and sent (1920) a body of military irregulars, popularly known as the Black and Tans, to reestablish order. The populace rallied to Sinn Féin.

In 1921 the British government yielded and began negotiations to establish the Irish Free State. The partition provisions of the resulting treaty did not, however, satisfy the militant wing of Sinn Féin, represented by De Valera, and civil war ensued. Gradually most of the country became reconciled to the new government, and Sinn Féin virtually came to an end when De Valera withdrew from it in 1927 and entered the Dáil.

In 1938 the few remaining intransigents merged with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), becoming the terrorist organization's political arm in advocating unification of Ireland by force. In 1969, along with the IRA, it split into official and provisional wings. The Marxist-oriented official Sinn Féin eventually became the Workers' Party, while the provisional wing continued to support the provisional IRA's use of terrorist activities to achieve unification. Gerry Adams has headed the latter party since 1983. In 1986, Sinn Féin ended its boycott of Ireland's parliament, with members taking seats for the first time since the parliament was established in 1922.

In late 1994, after the IRA and Protestant militias agreed to a cease-fire, efforts were begun to negotiate a settlement of the Northern Ireland issue. However, the peace process was put in jeopardy by renewed violence on the part of the IRA in 1996. Because of this, negotiations begun in June, 1996, did not include Sinn Féin. Following a renewed cease-fire in July, 1997, the group participated in peace talks begun in September of that year.

In 1998, agreement was reached concerning political restructuring in the province that would allow Protestants and Catholics to govern jointly in a democratically elected assembly. Members of Sinn Féin were elected to the assembly and participated in the province's government, but moderate Protestant leaders insisted on IRA disarmament (finally begun in Oct., 2001) as a condition for Sinn Féin's long-term participation in a broad-based government.

In 2002 the arrest of party members on charges of spying for the IRA led Protestants to call for Sinn Féin's ouster from the government, and home rule was suspended. Elections in Nov., 2003, which made Sinn Féin the largest Irish nationalist party in the assembly, did not lead to the reestablishment of home rule. In 2005 senior party members were accused of sanctioning alleged IRA robberies. Later in 2005, charges stemming from the 2002 case were dropped, and one of the accused spies admitted to being a long-time government informant, prompting charges that the spying case was a politically motivated attempt to aid moderate Protestant Unionists. Sinn Féin remained the largest Catholic party after the Mar., 2007, elections, and later that month the Democratic Unionists, the more militant Protestant party, agreed to enter into a power-sharing government with Sinn Féin.

See R. Davis, Arthur Griffith and Non-violent Sinn (1974); M. Dillon, The Dirty War (1990); P. Taylor, Behind the Mask (1998).

Sinn Fein. The Gaelic for ‘we ourselves’. Formed as a series of clubs in Ireland and led by the journalist Arthur Griffith at the beginning of the 20th cent., until 1916 Sinn Fein was more important for ideas than organization. It stressed the need for self-sufficiency in economic and cultural affairs, advocated passive resistance and the de facto establishment of an Irish government as the means of achieving nationalist ends, less appropriately suggesting a dual monarchy along Austro-Hungarian lines for resolving the Ulster question. The British authorities inaccurately referred to the Sinn Fein rising 1916. From 1917 it was used as an umbrella title for the advanced nationalist party, which supplanted the parliamentary party. Following its triumph in the 1918 general election, Sinn Fein formed the Dáil government, but in the Anglo-Irish War it took a back seat in the military campaign and became the political arm of the Irish Republican Army. Splitting over the Anglo-Irish treaty, under de Valera it supported the republican fight in the civil war 1922–3. In 1926 Sinn Fein divided again over the issue of recognition of the Free State Dáil: the minority adhered to an abstentionist policy and retained the Sinn Fein title, the majority formed the Fianna Fail Party. In the following decades, it lost popular support, though remaining significant as the political wing of the IRA on both sides of the border. It abandoned its traditional abstentionist policy over the hunger strikes in 1981 and became increasingly popular among the catholic working class in Northern Ireland, challenging the electoral dominance of SDLP, under the leadership of Gerry Adams in Belfast and Martin McGuinness in Derry. From 1998 until 2002 Sinn Fein took part in the power-sharing administration resulting from the ‘Good Friday’ agreement. In 2005, Sinn Fein took five seats at Westminster, gaining Newry and Armagh from the SDLP. In 2007 it joined the Democratic Unionist Party in a power-sharing executive.

Michael Hopkinson

Sinn Féin (Gaelic, ‘Ourselves Alone’) Irish republican, nationalist party founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It seeks to bring about a united Ireland. Sinn Féin became a mass party after the Easter Rising (1916). It won 75% of the vote in the last all-Ireland election (1918), and formed an Irish assembly (the Dáil Éireann) led by Éamon De Valera. A two-year war of independence was fought between Britain and the Irish Republican Army (IRA), led by Michael Collins. The Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin was split and the country plunged into civil war. The pro-treaty wing (Fine Gael), led by William Cosgrave, formed a government. De Valera, leader of the anti-treaty wing, withdrew from Sinn Féin and formed Fianna Fáil (1926). In 1938, the remaining republican intransigents joined the outlawed IRA. In 1969, two groups emerged that mirrored the factions of the Provisional and Official IRA. ‘Official’ Sinn Féin became the Workers Party. The Provisionals refused to recognize the authority of Dublin or Westminster. The President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, was elected to Westminster four times (1983, 1987, 1997, 2001).

Sinn Fein / ˈshin ˈfān/ a political movement and party seeking a united republican Ireland. DERIVATIVES: Sinn Fein·er n.

Sinn Fein Irish movement formed in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. — Ir., ‘we ourselves’.

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SINN FÉIN.

The Irish radical nationalist political movement and party, Sinn Féin, was founded around 1905. However, the present Sinn Féin party's claim to be the oldest political party in Ireland disguises profound changes in its ideology, tactics, and personnel over the course of the twentieth century. Translating as "Ourselves" and promoting the principle of Irish self-reliance, the Sinn Féin movement emerged from a number of political groups, including Cumann na nGaedheal (founded 1900) led by Arthur Griffith, the National Council (1903), and the Dungannon Clubs (1905) in Belfast. The Dungannon Clubs and Cumann na nGaedheal merged in April 1907 as the Sinn Féin League, becoming Sinn Féin in 1908. Although Sinn Féin contested many local elections and the 1908 North Leitrim by-election (which proved a crushing defeat), the movement was always more of a pressure group than merely a political party, providing a meeting ground for various disparate nationalists, feminists, pacifists, socialists, and Irish language enthusiasts, brought together by their rejection of Irish devolution (Home Rule) and using the radical nationalist press to convey its message. Griffith was the party's principle ideologue, despite his unwillingness to become involved in formal party politics. Griffith's two major works, The Resurrection of Hungary (1904) and The Sinn Féin Policy (1906), suggested that Ireland, under a system of dual monarchy with the English Crown, should become economically self-reliant and that Irish members of Parliament (MPs) would abstain from Westminster and create an Irish national assembly instead.

1916–1921

Prior to the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, Sinn Féin stood at the margins of Irish politics; in August 1909, the party could boast only 581 members, 211 of whom came from Dublin. But its importance lay in establishing the split between constitutional nationalists and separatists that would change Irish politics in 1917 and 1918. Following the Easter Rising (which was erroneously dubbed the "Sinn Féin Rebellion"), the British government's suppression of the party and its attempts to introduce conscription to Ireland during 1918 gave Sinn Féin a popularity undreamed of before World War I. During 1917 Sinn Féin gained four important by-election victories. A year later, its membership had risen to 112,080 members, and in the December 1918 election Sinn Féin gained 48 percent of the vote and 73 out of 105 parliamentary seats at Westminster, including the first woman to be elected as an MP, Constance Markievicz. Sinn Féin, however, did not take up these seats, instead establishing the first Dáil É ireann (Irish Parliament) that claimed to be the legitimate government of Ireland. Hostilities began shortly afterward between the British forces and the Irish paramilitaries (including the IRA), and as the Anglo-Irish conflict escalated, Sinn Féin became increasingly marginalized, seeing its share of the vote fall to 30 percent in the local elections of 1920. The Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the war in 1921, despite being negotiated by Griffith and Michael Collins on the Irish side, was deeply contentious to many within the Sinn Féin movement, especially the continued connection between Ireland and Britain embodied in the Oath of Allegiance to the English Crown required of all members of the newly elected Irish assembly. Unable to reach consensus, the separatist republicans of the Sinn Féin movement, led by Eamonn de Valera, opposed the treaty, leading to the outbreak of civil war in Ireland.

1923–1970

Defeated in the Irish civil war, Sinn Féin emerged again in May 1923, recognizing the second Dáil (elected a year earlier) as the legitimate government of Ireland. By 1926, de Valera had become disillusioned with Sinn Féin's failure to acknowledge the political realities of Ireland and moved away from the party to form Fianna Fáil. Only a rump Sinn Féin party remained, and from 1926 onward it did not contest Irish Free State elections and became an increasingly irrelevant republican ghetto. The 1930s were notable only for the election of Margaret Buckley as president of the party in 1936, the first female leader of an Irish party, and Sinn Féin's transferral of the second Dáil's powers as the legitimate government of Ireland to the army council of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1938 on the commencement of its bombing campaign on mainland Britain. The IRA increased its hold over Sinn Féin, infiltrating the party in 1949.

THE 1970S AND 1980S

By the end of the 1960s, tensions in the party between socialists wanting electoral participation and militarists grew and resulted in a split in the republican movement at the end of 1969. The Provisional IRA took up the armed struggle against the British armed forces during the 1970s, with Provisional Sinn Féin continuing to be a support group for the IRA, as Gerry Adams, who emerged as the leader of Sinn Féin during the 1980s, later recalled doing little more than selling newspapers and raffle tickets.

With Adams, Martin McGuinness, and others coming to the fore in the party, the 1980s saw the beginnings of a coherent political strategy for Sinn Féin. At the height of the hunger strikes by republican prisoners in 1981, Sinn Féin decided to abandon decades of abstention from political activity and contest the Fermanagh-South Tyrone by-election. In April 1981 Bobby Sands, the leader of the hunger strikes, was duly elected MP. At that year's Ard Fheis (annual party conference), leading republican Danny Morrison summarized this strategy of militarism and electoralism as combining the ballot box with the Armalite (a light machine gun, popular with the IRA at this time). Politics began to complement, but not replace, armed struggle, and Sinn Féin became increasingly influential in the republican movement. By 1986 Sinn Féin had abandoned abstentionism and had recognized the southern Irish state, allowing Sinn Féin to take up their seats in the Irish Dáil.

SINN FÉIN AND THE PEACE PROCESS

The first signs that politics might one day replace armed struggle as Sinn Féin policy came at the end of the 1980s. Acknowledging the need to find agreement with the unionist majority in Northern Ireland, the 1987 Sinn Féin election manifesto, A Scenario for Peace, was an important policy statement that affirmed the necessity of a political route for the party. What became known as the peace process in Northern Ireland can be seen to have commenced shortly afterward in 1988 when John Hume (leader of the majority nationalist party in Northern Ireland, the Social Democratic and Labour Party [SDLP]) began secret talks with Gerry Adams. These discussions were initially fruitless, but marked the starting point of Sinn Féin's entry into the political mainstream.

Following the Hume-Adams document of April 1993 and the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 between British Prime Minister John Major and the Irish Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, an IRA cease-fire began in 1994. Subsequently, Sinn Féin political progress was slow but assured during the 1990s. In the 1997 Irish elections, Caoimhghín ó Caoláin became the first Sinn Féin member to take his seat in the Dáil Éireann since 1922. The historic 1998 Belfast Agreement (called the Good Friday Agreement) admitted Sinn Féin to all-party talks, restored devolved government to Ireland, and established a North-South ministerial council. It was, in the historian Alvin Jackson's description, the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 for slow-learning republicans. Seen by Sinn Féin as an interim measure on the road to an independent Ireland, the Belfast Agreement brought the party fully into the political mainstream, and in the 2001 general election, Sinn Féin surpassed the SDLP as the majority party among the Catholic nationalist community of Northern Ireland, winning 21 percent of the vote in the national and local elections.

See alsoIreland; Northern Ireland.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davis, Richard P. Arthur Griffith and Non-Violent Sinn Féin. Dublin, 1974.

Feeney, Brian. Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years. Dublin, 2002.

Jackson, Alvin. Home Rule: An Irish History 1800–2000. London, 2003.

Laffan, Michael. The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923. Cambridge, U.K., 1999.

O'Brien, Brendan. The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Féin. 2nd ed. Syracuse, N.Y., 1997.

Taylor, Peter. Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin. Rev. ed. London, 1998.

D.A.J. MacPherson