Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin (/ʃɪn ˈfeɪn/ shin FAYN,[6] Irish: [ʃɪnʲ ˈfʲeːnʲ]; English: “[We] Ourselves”) is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, but has split substantially on a number of occasions since then, notably giving rise in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War to the two traditionally dominant parties of southern Irish politics: Fianna Fáil, and Cumann na nGaedheal (now Fine Gael).
The contemporary Sinn Féin party took its form in 1970 after another split (with the other faction eventually becoming the Workers’ Party of Ireland) and was historically associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).[8] Mary Lou McDonald became party president in February 2018.
Sinn Féin is one of the two largest parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly, winning one seat less than the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) at the 2017 Northern Ireland Assembly election.
In that assembly it is the largest Irish nationalist party, and it holds four ministerial posts in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive as of 2020. In the UK House of Commons, Sinn Féin holds seven of Northern Ireland’s 18 seats, making it the second-largest bloc after the DUP; there it follows a policy of abstentionism, refusing to sit in parliament or vote on bills.
In the Oireachtas (the parliament of the Republic of Ireland), Sinn Féin currently sits as the main opposition and the second largest party having won the largest share of first-preference votes at the 2020 Irish general election.
The phrase “Sinn Féin” is Irish for “Ourselves” or “We Ourselves”, although it is frequently mistranslated as “ourselves alone” (from “Sinn Féin Amháin”, an early-20th-century slogan). The name is an assertion of Irish national sovereignty and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain under the Westminster Parliament.
