The Evolution of Sinn Fein

It is almost a commonplace of the political moralists that every failure on the part of England to satisfy the moderate and constitutional demands of the Irish people for reform...

The political history of Post-Union Ireland opens with an armed rebellion. Robert Emmet for an abortive attempt to seize Dublin Castle was condemned and executed in 1803. His ri...

During the abortive attempt at a constitutional policy, the survivors of the party of Mitchel and Lalor were not idle. It cannot be said that Ireland had at this time come to re...

It may seem extraordinary that such a system should have been accepted, even if the attempt to impose it were made. But in fact the bribe of knowledge is a great bribe; and in t...

The war against the Transvaal Republics made the question of recruiting for the army a question of public importance in Ireland during the early days of the paper, and its artic...

The merits of List's theories in the abstract it is for economists to determine: but the concrete instance of the commercial expansion of Germany seemed at the time a sufficient...

The Irish Labour Party had need, in truth, to be independent of all existing political parties in Ireland. The Ulster Unionist Party was definitely and irrevocably committed to...

On the question of the Home Rule Bill Ulster was almost equally divided. The majority of the Ulster Protestants were against it, though a minority, among whom traditions of Prot...

All Ireland, as if stunned by the shock, waited breathlessly to see what would happen. Nothing happened. The Liberal Government, with defiance shouted in its beard, decided that...

Of the committee which took charge of the movement during its earlier stages some were (or had been) supporters of Sinn Fein, others were Republicans, more than a third were sup...

But Sinn Fein saw that, though partition was unacceptable, it was no use continually asking the Ulstermen to name the safeguards they wanted. They would not name what they did n...

By the time Mr. Redmond had returned to Ireland the attitude of all Irish parties to the war had become pretty clearly defined. The Ulster Volunteers, after about a month's hesi...

The autumn of 1914 saw the appearance of a new Separatist paper, _Eire-Ireland_, which appeared as a weekly on October 26th and was changed to a daily after the second number. I...

Meanwhile the activities of the Irish Volunteers continued. The secession after the dispute with Mr. Redmond had withdrawn a large majority of their original numbers: indeed som...

In his next tract "The Spiritual Nation" Pearse analyzed the national teaching of Thomas Davis, who was to him the embodiment of the idea of the spiritual side of nationality. D...

The resentment at the execution of the leaders of the Rising had not confined itself to the indulgence of feelings of rage and sorrow. It had led to an eager inquiry into what i...

Meanwhile the growing popularity of Sinn Fein was leading to a revival of the Irish Volunteers. Drilling was resumed and, though frequent arrests were made and the Government de...

Sinn Fein decided in the circumstances to put the real opinion of Ireland on the question of independence to a definite test before the Convention should have time to report in...

When the formidable nature of the task they had undertaken dawned upon the Lord Lieutenant and his Chief Secretary, it was decided by the Irish Government to cut the sinews of t...

Sinn Fein was the opposite of all this. It appealed alike from force and from fact to an ideal justice. Unable to win independence from a power both strong enough to coerce it a...