If you want to make a lasting and worthwhile contribution to building a better future for all, then Sinn Féin is the party for you.

What is Sinn Féin?

Sinn Féin is the fastest-growing political party in Ireland.

It is a republican and labour party, taking its inspiration from the politics of Wolfe Tone, James Connolly and the 1916 Easter Rising.

Sinn Féin, the only all-Ireland party, is committed to achieving a 32-County democratic socialist republic and the end of British rule in Ireland.

Sinn Féin is nationalist and internationalist. It is anti-imperialist, anti-fascist and anti-racist.

Sinn Féin, a fresh alternative to the stale politics, corruption and mismanagement of the Establishment parties, is committed to achieving real change in Irish society. Sinn Féin is working to bring about an end to the sectarian Six-County state.

Organised throughout the 32 Counties, it is a radical, campaigning, activist party. It is dedicated to achieving a society free from prejudice and discrimination, and providing justice and equal opportunity for all in an independent Ireland.

Sinn Féin is working hard to achieve the implementation of its progressive policies on:

National Independence

* Irish unity and independence
* Peace process
* Implement the Good Friday Agreement
* Equality and Justice

The Economy

* Republican labour
* Sharing the wealth
* Workers' Rights and Industrial Relations
* Rural Development
* Agriculture
* Fisheries

Social Policy

* Housing
* Health and Social Services
* Drugs
* Education and Culture
* Environment
* Women
* Discrimination
* Youth Rights

International Affairs

* Neutrality
* European Union and World Trade

Sinn Féin has a well-earned reputation for hard work, honesty and integrity.

If you want to make a lasting and worthwhile contribution to building a better future for all, then Sinn Féin is the party for you.

Irish Republicanism

Modern Irish republicans trace their political origins to the movement of the United Irishmen of the 1790s. The United Irishmen took their inspiration from the French Revolution and fought to break the political connection between Ireland and Britain, believing that only an independent Ireland could guarantee equality and prosperity for the Irish people. Most of the leading figures of the United Irishmen were Presbyterians and a key part of their programme was unity between Irish people of all religions and none in the cause of liberty. Their rebellion in 1798 was ruthlessly suppressed but their ideas continue to inspire Irish nationalists and republicans today.

The name Sinn Féin ("We Ourselves") first emerged in the early 1900s as a federation of nationalist clubs.

The Sinn Féin party, inspired by the Proclamation in 1916, reorganised in 1917 based on the demand for an Irish republic. It won the 1918 general election with an overwhelming majority and established Dáil Éireann ("Assembly of Ireland"). Following three years of guerrilla war, led by the underground republican government, the party split in 1922 on the issue of the Treaty which partitioned Ireland.

Throughout the 1920s, following a devastating Civil War, Sinn Féin continued as the republican party. Its fortunes ebbed and flowed in the late 1950s and the early 1960s with the IRA's Border Campaign, during which Sinn Féin enjoyed significant electoral success.

In the 1960s, Sinn Féin adopted a more radical stance on social and economic affairs. But differing approaches to the Civil Rights Movement and to the outbreak of the present conflict in the Six Counties led to another split. One section of Sinn Féin was in the process of abandoning the republican demand for British withdrawal from Ireland and went through various transformations such as the Workers' Party and Democratic Left before eventually merging with the 26-County Labour Party.

POBLACHT NA h-EIREANN

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

OF THE

IRISH REPUBLIC

TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.








Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government:
THOMAS J. CLARKE
SEAN Mac DIARMADA THOMAS MacDONAGH
P. H. PEARSE EAMONN CEANNT
JAMES CONNOLLY JOSEPH PLUNKETT