SINN FÉIN

1. SINN FÉIN To examine to foundation of the first Sinn Féin party.

2. ORIGINS

3. WHY NEW NATIONALISM? • Disillusionment with the Home Rule Party. • The split over Parnell’s leadership created a bad public image of the party. Conservatives were opposed to Home Rule and even the Liberals backed away from active support. By early 1900s many Home Rule MPs had been in Westminster for twenty years and there were fears that they had lost touch with developments in Ireland. • Cultural Nationalism. • Strong cultural identity that was separate from Britain. Therefore it should also be politically separate. • Commemorating 1798. • The 100 year anniversary of the 1798 rebellion inspired those who saw division and disagreement in the Home Rule party.

4. WHY NEW NATIONALISM? • The Boer War, 1899 – 1902. • The Boers were of Dutch descent lived in the independent Boer Republic of Transvaal in South Africa. In 1899, war broke out between the Boers and the British who controlled neighbouring Rhodesia, Bechunaland and the Cape Colony. Radical nationalists saw similarities between the Irish and the Boers. That year Arthur Griffith and Maud Gonne founded the Irish Transvaal Committee. They tried to reduce ‘treasonous’ British Army recruitment in Ireland, protested at an Irish visit by Queen Victoria and formed two Irish Brigades to fight with the Boers. The war ended in 1902 with the deaths of 30,000 Boer civilians and 20,000 British soldiers. The 20th century began with a feeling of anti-imperialism/empire.

5. ARTHUR GRIFFITH • Arthur Griffith was born in Dublin in 1871. He was a printer and journalist who became involved in the Gaelic League and later in he IRB. In 1898 he founded The United Irishman, which with its successor journals and pamphlets such as The Resurrection of Hungary, published Griffiths ideas on politics and economics. • POLITICAL IDEAS: Griffith was a Republican but he knew that most Irish people wanted some link with Britain. He thought that Home Rule gave the British too much power. Instead he believed that Irish people should seek a ‘dual monarchy’ like Austria-Hungary (Ireland and Britain would be separate but share the same monarch). • METHODS: Griffith recommended that Irish MPs should stay away from Westminster and join with county councillors to set up a Council of Three Hundred in Dublin. This council would act as an Irish parliament, make its own laws, set up an administration and persuade the people to co-operate with it, in order to destroy the British administration and persuade the people to co-operate with it, in order to destroy the British administration.

6. ARTHUR GRIFFITH • ECONOMIC IDEAS: Griffith wanted Ireland to be economically strong as well as politically free and proposed that Ireland build up industries protected by tariff barriers. • SINN FEIN: In 1905 Griffith set up Sinn Fein to spread his ideas. By 1908 it had 100 branches. In that year, Charles Dolan, a Home Rule MP, resigned in disgust at his party’s ineffectiveness and fought the subsequent by-election as a Sinn Fein candidate. He lost the election but gained one-third of the votes. • DECLINE: This result convinced Griffith that Sinn Fein was very popular. He now brought out his newspaper as a daily, losing a lot of money. Griffith had little talent for routine organisational work and people found him cold, distant and suspicious. Sinn Fein members drifted towards the Home Rule party when its fortunes revived after 1910 or else joined the more militant IRB. By 1912 the first Sinn Fein party was practically extinct, though the name still lingered in people’s minds, associated with the most extreme open Nationalist movement.

7. ARTHUR GRIFFITH • How did Griffith’s role as a journalist help advance the Nationalist cause? • What Nationalist organisations was Griffith involved in? • Why did Griffith admire Austria-Hungary? • What did Griffith advise Irish MPs to do? • Why was Griffith unsuccessful in his aims with Sinn Fein?