Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin | |
|---|---|
| President | Mary Lou McDonald |
| Vice president | Michelle O'Neill |
| Chairperson | Declan Kearney |
| General Secretary | Ken O'Connell |
| Seanad leader | Conor Murphy |
| Founder | Arthur Griffith[1] |
| Founded |
|
| Merger of | National Council[2] Cumann na nGaedheal Dungannon Clubs |
| Headquarters | 44 Parnell Square, Dublin, Ireland |
| Newspaper | An Phoblacht |
| Youth wing | Ógra Shinn Féin[3] |
| LGBT wing | Sinn Féin LGBTQIA+[4] |
| Overseas wing | Friends of Sinn Féin |
| Membership (2020) | ~15,000[5] |
| Ideology |
|
| Political position | Centre-left[7] to left-wing[8] |
| European Parliament group | The Left |
| Colours | Green |
| Slogan | Tosaíonn athrú anseo ('Change starts here')[9] |
| Dáil Éireann | 39 / 174 |
| Seanad Éireann | 6 / 60 |
| European Parliament | 2 / 14 |
| Northern Ireland Assembly | 27 / 90 |
| House of Commons (NI seats) | 7 / 18 (abstentionist) |
| Councillors in the Republic of Ireland | 99 / 949 |
| Councils led in the Republic of Ireland | 2 / 31 |
| Local government in Northern Ireland[10] | 144 / 462 |
| Councils led in Northern Ireland | 6 / 11 |
| Website | |
| sinnfein.ie | |
| |
| Part of a series on |
| Irish republicanism |
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Sinn Féin (/ʃɪn ˈfeɪn/ shin FAYN;[11] Irish: [ˌʃɪn̠ʲ ˈfʲeːnʲ] ⓘ; lit. '[We] Ourselves')[12] is an Irish republican[13] and democratic socialist[14] political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. Its members founded the revolutionary Irish Republic and its parliament, the First Dáil, and many of them were active in the Irish War of Independence, during which the party was associated with the Irish Republican Army (1919–1922). The party split before the Irish Civil War and again in its aftermath, giving rise to the two traditionally dominant parties of Irish politics: Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal (which merged with smaller groups to form Fine Gael). For several decades the remaining Sinn Féin organisation was small and often without parliamentary representation. It continued its association with the Irish Republican Army. Another split in 1970 at the start of the Troubles led to the modern Sinn Féin party, with the other faction eventually becoming the Workers' Party.
During the Troubles, Sinn Féin was associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army.[15] For most of that conflict, it was affected by broadcasting bans in the Irish and British media. Although the party sat on local councils, it maintained a policy of abstentionism for the British House of Commons and the Irish Dáil Éireann, standing for election to those legislatures but pledging not to take their seats if elected. After Gerry Adams became party leader in 1983, electoral politics were prioritised increasingly. In 1986, the party dropped its abstentionist policy for the Dáil; some members formed Republican Sinn Féin in protest. In the 1990s, Sinn Féin—under the leadership of Adams and Martin McGuinness—was involved in the Northern Ireland peace process. This led to the Good Friday Agreement and created the Northern Ireland Assembly, and saw Sinn Féin become part of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive. In 2006, it co-signed the St Andrews Agreement and agreed to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin is the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, having won the largest share of first-preference votes and the most seats in the 2022 election, the first time an Irish nationalist party has done so.[16][17] Since 2024, Michelle O'Neill has served as the first ever Irish nationalist First Minister of Northern Ireland.[18] From 2007 to 2022, Sinn Féin was the second-largest party in the Assembly, after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and its nominees served as Deputy First Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive.
In the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Sinn Féin has held seven of Northern Ireland's seats since the 2024 election; it continues its policy of abstentionism at Westminster. In Dáil Éireann it is the main opposition, having won the second largest number of seats in the 2024 election. The current president of Sinn Féin is Mary Lou McDonald, who succeeded Gerry Adams in 2018.
- ^ O'Hegarty, P.S. (1952). A History of Ireland under the Union, 1801 to 1922. London: Methuen. p. 634.
- ^ Michael Laffan, The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party 1916-23, pp. 25-6, ISBN 0-521-67267-8.
- ^ Sinn Féin Republican Youth Returns To Better Known Title, Ógra Shinn Féin. An Sionnach Fionn. Published 31 March 2018. Retrieved 18 August 2018.
- ^ "Sinn Féin LGBTQ". Twitter. Archived from the original on 13 August 2021. Retrieved 13 August 2021.
- ^ Keena, Colm (5 March 2020). "Sinn Féin is the richest political party in Ireland". The Irish Times. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
This will bring total membership for [Sinn Féin] to around 15,000. According to their party spokespeople, Fine Gael has 25,000 members, while Fianna Fáil has 20,000.
- ^ Suiter 2016, p. 134.
- ^ "Civil War politics finally ends in Irish parliament: Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael form coalition". The MacMillan Center. 29 June 2020. Retrieved 6 March 2023.
[…] Sinn Féin's progressive left-of-center program […]
- ^ Culloty & Suiter 2018, p. 5.
- ^ "Home".
- ^ "NI council elections 2023: Sinn Féin largest party in NI local government". BBC News. 20 May 2023.
- ^ "Sinn Féin". Oxford Dictionaries UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Dinneen, Patrick (1992) [1927]. Irish-English Dictionary. Dublin: Irish Texts Society. ISBN 1-870166-00-0.
- ^ "New Sinn Féin: Irish Republicanism in the Twenty-First Century". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
- ^ "Parties and Elections in Europe". www.parties-and-elections.eu. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
- ^ Flackes & Elliott 1994.
- ^ "NI election results 2022: Sinn Féin wins most seats in historic election". BBC News. 7 May 2022. Archived from the original on 8 May 2022. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
- ^ McClements, Freya; Graham, Seanín; Hutton, Brian; Moriarty, Gerry (8 May 2022) [7 May 2022]. "Assembly election: Sinn Féin wins most seats as parties urged to form Executive". The Irish Times. Dublin. ISSN 0791-5144. Archived from the original on 9 May 2022. Retrieved 7 May 2022.
- ^ "Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill elected first ever nationalist First Minister of Northern Ireland". The Irish Times. Retrieved 3 February 2024.