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This chapter explores the evolution of separatist politics in county Galway, from the formation of Sinn Féin in 1905, to its electoral victory in December 1918, and includes the first detailed narrative account of the 1916 Easter Rising in Galway. The small Sinn Féin party, first established in Galway in 1906, had become the largest and most influential political organization in the county by 1918; the most prominent leader of Sinn Féin in Galway was Tom Kenny, the Craughwell blacksmith. The evidence presented in this chapter suggests that it may not have been possible to apply all aspects of Fitzpatrick's Clare model to neighbouring Galway. Far from being established on the basis of the ‘Home Rule tradition’, Sinn Féin emerged from the radical agrarian and republican political culture of Kenny's secret society. This chapter also suggests that the personnel of Sinn Féin in Galway were not, by and large, the old Home Rule wine decanted into new bottles.

Recently, a debate has begun among Irish historians as to the nature of the Irish revolution, and Peter Hart has provided a useful definition of what is meant by the term the ‘Irish revolution’. Hart suggests that the Irish revolution was a period during which two distinct blocs made competing claims to the state (beginning with the Easter Rising), resulting in a period of multiple sovereignty which was only concluded in May 1923, when the anti-Treaty republicans gave up their attempt to dispute the existence of the southern state. This chapter examines the broader social dynamics of the Irish revolution in the west of Ireland between the general election of December 1918 and the Truce of July 1921, and considers the extent to which Irish society was transformed between these years.

In 1941 Sinn Féin President Margaret Buckley took legal action against the State in an attempt to recover the Sinn Féin funds that had been lodged in the Free State Courts two decades earlier. This episode gave an interesting insight into what Sinn Féin had contributed to Irish history, how the past was recorded by those who had played a major part in the Revolutionary period, and who could claim the legacy of the pre-Civil War party.

This chapter focuses on the years between 1914 and 1918. The years 1913-14 were a time of trial for Devlin, from the pressure to accept temporary exclusion in February 1914 to the unwelcome emergence of paramilitary forces on both sides and then his exclusion from the Buckingham Palace Conference. He did not cave in and remained supportive of the Liberal Government, and, for the first time in his career, felt closer to Redmond than to Dillon in positive support for the war effort. However, the next four years were to see a downward spiral. The Volunteer movement brought violent revolution and repression, which drove an ever-deeper wedge between the two communities in Belfast and destroyed the constitutional movement across the country. The government at Westminster degenerated into coalitions that were more concerned with maintaining their own stability (and winning the war) than with settling the Irish question. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church was more concerned to run with popular opinion than to take political risks in order to achieve a compromise settlement.

The evolution within Sinn Féin and ‘Provisional’ republicanism involved the broadening of ideas, the rearranging of principles and a change of tactics. The sum of these parts was a considerable transition. This chapter examines the ideological and political change within Sinn Féin. The academic literature that considers the evolution of Sinn Féin is wide-ranging in assessing the impact of military fortune and British state strategy but has appeared reluctant to comprehend Sinn Féin as essentially an ordinary political party in modern times, conditioned by the rules of the electoral game and successfully adapting to those rules. In order to begin understanding the dissident ideological standpoint it is necessary to consider Sinn Féin’s movement into constitutional politics within a consociational power-sharing agreement and to what extent that represented the updating, revising or contorting of Irish republican principles.

Borrowing on a tradition of radical journalism dating back more than 200 years, modern Irish republicans, in particular, Sinn Féin, have used activist media to articulate their ideological since the late 1960s and the start of the Troubles. At times of marginalisation from the political mainstream through broadcasting bans and structural bias in the media, republicans used their own activist newspapers, pamphlets and promotional materials to convey their political messages. In the same period Sinn Féin began and finished the journey from being the marginal political wing of the Provisional IRA to being arguably the most prominent political party in Irish nationalist politics. Its transformation from minority voice of an armed organisation which saw violence as central to its goals to the main voice of republicanism that had accepted ceasefires and the political path was remarkable. Activist media was central to ideological journey of the Shinners, providing an internal space in which to articulate and interrogate dynamic shifts in ideology and an outward face to communicate these developments.

Sinn Féin’s elevation to the undoubted voice of establishment republicanism did not come without its ideological challenges which charged it with selling out ideological values of the movement which dated back at least to the 1916 Rising. These initially came from dissident republican organisations (the dissos) like Republican Sinn Féin and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement with links to armed groups still pledged to maintain violent opposition to the British presence in Ireland. Newer groups emerged to challenge older forms of traditional and militarist ideology, specifically éirígí and Republican Network for Unity, who used the Internet and activist media to communicate their positions on the changes to republicanism. Between these two blocs, an interesting group of non-aligned activists emerged in the early 2000s using old media like newspapers and new technology of the Internet to discuss alternatives to Sinn Féin’s reformism and acceptance of the compromises made necessary by the Peace Process. These writers contributed a new strand of dissenting opinion which was supported the peace but was critical of the process.

This chapter provides the historical and contextual backdrop to the emergence of dissident republicanism. The aim is to address the gaps that exist in the literature in order to go beyond the description of dissidents as, ‘irritants, embarrassing Sinn Féin’ (Mac Ginty, 2006). Irish republicanism has never been cast in a rigid mould making it harder to define and therefore easier for Sinn Féin, despite the obvious compromises made, to proclaim they remain the embodiment of republican principles. Similarly, ‘dissident’ groups fail to represent a monolithic entity, meaning they cannot be easily slotted into simple categorisations and easily labelled. This chapter explores the impact of external ideological forces, social, political and military circumstances and the influence of other global peace processes on republicanism in Northern Ireland.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)–Sinn Féin talks of 1988 wholly contradicted the intended outcome of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, and were prefaced by an exchange of letters by John Hume and Gerry Adams. Hume focused upon the means and the motives of the republican movement, and also offered an alternative explanation of the Northern Ireland problem, as well as a political approach towards its resolution. Adams's letter to him was much shorter, but included a position paper outlining his party's understanding of the conflict and the means to its resolution. Hume and the SDLP faced enormous criticism for talking to Sinn Féin. Pan-nationalism was about providing republicans with a credible alternative to the armed struggle. Hume turned to London, hoping that the British government would offer validation of the arguments he had presented to Sinn Féin.

This chapter focuses on the strong attraction that Ireland held for Afro-Caribbean and African American intellectuals and activists such as Marcus Garvey, Cyril Briggs, Claude McKay, Hubert Harrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and A. Philip Randolph. The Afro-Caribbean activists, in particular, took inspiration from the “Irish Revolution.” References to the Irish Parliamentary Party, Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood dotted their newspapers and broadsides, as did the names of Irish revolutionary heroes such as Terence MacSwiney and Eamon de Valera. Insofar as they embraced black nationalism, they pointed to the Irish preoccupation with “Ourselves,” which they translated as “Race First.” Some African American intellectuals, above all Du Bois, were more circumspect about the Irish. They were keenly aware of the antagonism that for generations had marked the relationships between blacks and Irish immigrants in the United States. And yet even for Du Bois “Bleeding Ireland” became an irresistible symbol of the human capacity for suffering and regeneration.

The trend towards politics that was established during the 1980s continued during the 1990s as the Provisional republican movement made its final move away from violence with two major ceasefires in the middle years of the decade. The republican militarist tradition proved durable as a series of splinter groups emerged for a variety of reasons. Factionalism occurred as a result of both ideological and personal differences as Northern Ireland moved closer to peace, the involvement of mainstream republicanism stimulating the military prerogatives of a significant minority. While the political transition of Sinn Féin is well covered, this chapter aims to consider how this influenced further division that occurred within republicanism as the peace process developed.

The Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 was designed to produce a settlement of Anglo-Irish differences over the issue of self government, differences that from 1919 onwards had taken the form of an armed conflict. A home rule measure, passed by the United Kingdom parliament in 1914, but suspended for the duration of the First World War, had been vitiated in the eyes of Irish nationalists by the British government's concessions to the anti-home rule sentiments of unionists. Moreover, ‘home rule’ had been overtaken by events such as the Easter rising in 1916 and the later eclipse of constitutional nationalism by the growth of Sinn Féin (‘ourselves alone’), a party committed to abstaining from the London parliament in order to pursue Irish interests at home.

This chapter deals with the demise of the IAPL in a period which witnessed the revival of IRA militarism and the rise of republican parties - Sinn Féin and Fianna Uladh - as competitors for the nationalist vote. The decision by the IALP not to contest the nationalist held seats of Mid Ulster and Fermanagh & South Tyrone and to leave Sinn Féin as the only anti-partition challengers is shown to have been a major political and tactical blunder. The chapter argues that while Sinn Féin’s success in taking the seats led some within the IALP to retreated to traditional positions other liberal-left and moderate elements within constitutional nationalism took the opportunity to push for a renewed and united nationalist party. The failure of the new Nationalist Party to integrate the existing left-nationalist parties, its failure to take on board the significance of the revived electoral fortunes of the Northern Ireland Labour Party in 1958, and the decision to again concede winnable Westminster parliamentary seats to Sinn Féin in 1959, are all identified as being symptomatic of a party whose strategy was becoming increasingly redundant.

The Wolfe Tone Society met with Sinn Féin representatives for talks which focused on Tony Meade's desire to expand the Society into an organisation that would supplant Sinn Féin. Nothing came of this as suspicions grew among traditionalists regarding moves towards an alliance with groups outside of the movement. Meade's proposal would have meant that members of Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Army would have been part of the same organisation as members of the Irish Workers Party and the Communist Party of Northern Ireland and indeed some members of the Labour Party. When Meade resigned as editor of the United Irishman, Anthony Coughlan was asked to replace him but declined. Despite Meade's frustration, the modernisers proceeded with their plans for a merger with other groups. A paper was given by Roy Johnston on radical movements in Ireland at special conference of the Wolfe Tone Society on the weekend of June 24 and 25 in Dublin.

This chapter demonstrates the significance of the First World War in the partial successes of Irish republicanism and Ulster unionism. The run-up to the 1916 Rising was preceded by significant evidence of declining support for Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party. The 1916 Rising, British wartime policy, and the elections of 1918 are examined to demonstrate the weakening of British authority in Ireland. The Rising itself was more rational and less romantic than it is typically portrayed. The British decision to ignore the election outcomes in Ireland at the end of the First World War led militant republicans to return to armed combat, conducting a guerrilla war of independence. The partition of Ireland and the war of independence are surveyed before a puzzle is addressed: why did the English prove incapable of federalizing their dominions and their dependencies in the Isles? The development of Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism are examined in their comparative European context. The UVF’s significance is emphasized in blocking Ireland’s comprehensive secession and in the formation of Northern Ireland.

By the end of the 2010s, Sinn Féin was by far the strongest republican voice was rapidly building a stronger base in the Republic of Ireland where it had become the third largest party in the Dáil. But, the structures of the Peace Process and the Stormont Assembly meant that it was no further to significantly challenging of the political status quo in Northern Ireland. The vote for Brexit, based as it was on a binary notion of British sovereignty that had been fudged by the Good Friday Agreement, changed that. The nature of Britain’s exiting of the European Union had massive ramifications of the Irish border. With a majority of people in Northern Ireland voting to remain (with 85% of the nationalist population doing so), the unionist veto over the wishes of the wider population came under deeper scrutiny. For Sinn Féin, which had been a long-term critic of the EU, this provided an opportunity putting the border back on the agenda. For dissidents, they found themselves in the unlikely position of sharing the same political standpoint as Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and, allegedly, the Queen.

This chapter focuses on the Irish War of Independence during the period from 1919 to 1921. It discusses the refusal of the newly elected Sinn Féin members of parliament to take their seats at Westminster and their decision to instead assemble in Dublin. The chapter explains the Sinn Féin members' creation of an executive government and their declaration of independence. It also describes the violent confrontation between Irish and British forces, and the pattern of assassination and counter-assassination.

Republican priests came in many guises, and the most common type was the ‘Sinn Féin priest’, not the ‘IRA priest’. For most the transformation did not entail a shift to a revolutionary outlook. Instead, it meant changing their political point of view from the demand for home rule to the philosophy of Sinn Féin. This philosophy was the most acceptable aspect of republicanism for the clergy, and many priests moved quickly to gain a stake in it. For many of them, investing in the building up of the republican political movement became a way of exercising control over young men who otherwise might espouse ‘wild’ notions of fighting the British forces. Many clerics contrasted the work of Sinn Féin favourably with the activities of the IRA. But many local IRA units remained inactive and the patterns of clerical involvement with these that had been established in 1919 continued. This chapter looks at the support for the political aspect of the republican movement and for those sections of the IRA that did not become active in the guerrilla struggle.