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The emergence of the political party Sinn Féin as an electoral force, and its gradual displacement of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as the primary vehicle for Provisional Irish republicanism, was an indispensable precondition for the peace process that brought an end to the long-running Northern Irish 'Troubles'. Unsurprisingly, this process has been a subject of close academic scrutiny, with much attention focusing on the dramatic, early breakthroughs made by Sinn Féin, particularly in the years 1981–1983. By contrast, the mid-to-late 1980s are often represented as something of a fallow period for the party, when its initial, seemingly meteoric rise stalled. Within this narrative, the 1985 local elections are typically passed over relatively quickly. Yet this article makes the case for revisiting those elections, seeing them as marking a somewhat under-appreciated political earthquake in Northern Ireland. It does so on the basis that first, the elections laid bare the ambiguities and tensions arising from the Irish republican movement's 'Armalite and Ballot box' strategy. And second, the consequences of the 1985 elections proved decisive in reshaping both Irish republicanism and the wider political landscape of Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stability of Irish democracy since 1922 is often a cause for contentment with lines of succession drawn from 'Grattan's parliament', O'Connell's popular movement, and the achievements of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) at Westminster through to Dáil Éireann. The IPP certainly disrupted the Commons, yet Irish politics was also shaped by the 'mother of parliaments' – MPs mastered parliamentary procedure and home rule legislation drew on British and colonial parliamentary models. By 1918, the party's machine and parliamentary behaviour were rejected as much as British rule – but as Michael Laffan suggested, Sinn Féin triumphed by beating the home rulers at their own game. However, the 1922 constitution gave generous expression to the sovereignty of the people, and for judicial review. But, within short succession, facility for popular initiative was overridden. Ironically, the Irish Free State would never be amended by popular will or judicial review but by parliamentary majority in 25 amendments as the people only voted to adopt it in 1922 and replace it in 1937. In practice then, it was closer to a vision of Dicey's supremacy of parliament dogma that prevailed, so much so, that Seán Lemass acrimoniously proclaimed in 1934: 'this is a sovereign assembly'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gerry Adams was the foremost Irish Republican leader in The Troubles (1968–1998). This paper analyses the extent to which he was a transformational leader, shifting Republicanism from armed struggle to politics. The paper analyses three texts by Adams at milestone points in the conflict. The first (1976) at the height of the armed campaign; the second (1986) as political engagement was increasing; and the third (2003), after the conflict had formally concluded. The paper uses four criteria to signify transformational leadership. The paper argues that, while Adams does not meet all four transformational leadership criteria equally, he transformed his organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys leadership in the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin in The Troubles (1968–1998), using four typologies to frame its analysis: position-based leadership; person-based leadership; results-based leadership; and process-based leadership. The paper considers the question—Are the four typologies a useful way of analysing leadership within the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin in The Troubles? The paper examines milestone points in The Troubles, including the formation and coming to prominence of Provisional IRA; the conflict in the prison system culminating in the hunger strikes of the early 1980s; the growth of the political party Sinn Féin; and the peace talks which brought about the end of The Troubles. The paper argues that, over time, the Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin shifted towards process-based leadership as they moved from an armed struggle to political engagement. Position-based and person-based leadership were also evident as key figures switched towards electoral participation. Political engagement also served results-based leadership, given Sinn Féin's electoral presence and influence in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Political communication is central to the electoral ascension of populist parties across the world. Several studies investigate how communication is used by populists to gain power, but we know very little about how the communication varies when moving between opposition and government office. The few studies on the topic focus exclusively on right-wing populist parties and neglect left-wing populism. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyses the political communication of left- and right-wing populist parties by comparing their periods in opposition and in government. It focuses on the Northern Ireland case and compares Sinn Féin and the DUP and uses deductive thematic analysis for each election manifesto for the Northern Ireland Assembly between 1998 and 2022. The analysis includes four themes: people-centrism, anti-elite bad manners, crisis talk and volonté générale solutions. Contrary to theoretical expectations, we find that the right-wing populist DUP has changed more substantively its political communication than the left-wing Sinn Féin when moving from opposition to government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arthur Griffith founded Sinn Féin. From 1899 onwards, through detailed articles in his weekly papers and otherwise, he strongly advocated the economic development of Ireland and the adoption of qualified protectionism to achieve it. As minister for foreign affairs in the revolutionary government of Ireland in 1921, he chaired the Irish delegation that negotiated with Lloyd George's government articles of agreement for an Anglo-Irish Treaty. In January 1922 he was elected president of Dáil Éireann, the revolutionary Irish parliament, but died suddenly in August 1922 before the new Irish Free State formally came into existence. This essay underlines the importance that he attached to economic affairs, not least in making fiscal autonomy a central ambition of his negotiations with the British. The author concludes that Griffith was far-sighted, and calls for a discrete and empathetic study of his economic ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017 an application to de-proscribe The Red Hand Commando (RHC) loyalist paramilitary organisation was submitted by an organisation known as the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) which has the backing of other proscribed loyalist groups including the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and RHC. The application was understandably considered negatively by some relatives of RHC victims as well as by Sinn Féin. The application was rejected for failing to comply with the necessary process of de-proscription which reinforces the criticism and difficulty for proscribed organisations that are no longer engaged in terrorism to de-proscribe. If the Northern Ireland Assembly and Commissions set up in Northern Ireland (NI) following the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) with support from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) are to dismantle paramilitary groups, then they must take bold decisions and decide whether it is time to support the de-proscription of paramilitary groups that have relinquished political violence. This article recommends that agencies should set out a staged process which can be followed by proscribed organisations in NI interested in applying for de-proscription thereby enabling them to self-evaluate whether or not they are ready for de-proscription. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining the writings of more than 150 IRA prisoners, this article explains why a majority of jailed republicans supported the movement's strategic reorientation between the anti-criminalisation protests of the late 1970s and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. First, it argues, experiences of prison protests, culminating in the hunger strike of 1981, inclined prisoners to endorse electoral interventions to counter their isolation. Sinn Féin's subsequent successes impelled prisoners to back electoralism more constructively, envisioning an all-Ireland 'pan-nationalist' front. By the end of the 1980s, many republican prisoners regarded tactical eclecticism as vital for their campaign's advance. Second, the article contends, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, prisoners pragmatically approved new methods as open-ended experiments. Electoralism, pan-nationalism, and, in the 1990s, peace talks were supposed to aggregate and strengthen the struggle. Tactics were dispensable, and worthwhile only insofar as they enhanced the perceived prospects of victory. By the Good Friday Agreement, prisoners espousing a transitional, constitutional route to Irish unification regarded even the IRA's 'armed struggle' as suspensible. Woven through prisoners' voluminous acclaim for tactical adaptability, traditions of intra-movement discipline and unity cohered the bulk of the IRA's prison population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The case of Northern Ireland and ex-IRA informers demonstrates the difficulty of dealing with the informer legacy post-conflict. We explain why Sinn Féin and the UK state have dealt with some conflict legacy cases involving informers but not with others. Contemporary political and reputational reasons are an important explanation, but there are also legal considerations and communal pressures at play. Divisions amongst alleged and self-confessed informers further facilitate this unstructured approach to legacy. These difficulties with informers' legacy are not unique to Northern Ireland. Similar challenges in reconciling former state agents with paramilitaries are evident across other conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish party system has been exceptional both for the weakness of its left-right conflict and for its long-run stability. How then can party competition on policy, and particularly competition between the main parties, be characterised? This study examines the Irish party system from an issue competition perspective, examining the party system agenda and asking whether Irish party competition is marked by differences in issue focus. New data from Irish party manifestos (1981–2020) coded within the framework of the Comparative Agendas Project show that rather than competing by focusing on different issues, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's issue focus is very similar and has moved in parallel over time. Nor is a distinct focus on new issues evident in Sinn Féin's offering as they have emerged as a major party. Moreover, it finds that 'new politics' issues have remained marginal and it examines how this has occurred using the 'crucial case' of environmental policy. While differences in issue focus do not help us to distinguish the main parties, the politics of competence continues to have an important role and positional politics may be coming to the fore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sinn Féin was once staunchly Eurosceptic and has periodically campaigned against the ratification of European Union treaties in Ireland. Since the early 2000s, however, they have rejected the Eurosceptic label and self-described as 'critically engaged' with the European Union. This article explores how Sinn Féin have used their membership of the European Parliament and the European United Left/Nordic Green Left parliamentary group since their first Members of the European Parliament were elected in 2004, with a particular focus on the acrimonious post–Brexit referendum period. The article argues that the European Union forum is seen in terms of its utility by Sinn Féin, as a venue to teach and learn from their colleagues on their particular understanding of Irish history, nationalism and party strategy. It concludes by arguing that, in a process beginning before Brexit, the opportunities the European Union platform affords Sinn Féin have led to the adaptation of a particularly novel engagement strategy with European institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ottoman Empire and Ireland seem an unlikely pair in every respect. In the secondary literature, the paths of the two countries never converge. Except for Sultan Abdülmecid's famous aid during the Famine, there has been virtually no discussion of the relationship between the two countries. By using the accounts of Ottoman authors and through a careful reading of archival materials from different eras, this article analyses the Ottoman perceptions of Ireland from the early modern era to the twentieth century. These documents and testimonies suggest that there was considerable interest in Ireland among Ottoman intellectuals and statesmen. They saw the country as some sort of anomaly which could be possibly useful in their dealings with Britain. For that reason, they diligently followed the developments taking place in Ireland. The case study developed in this article demonstrates first the importance of Ottoman archival materials for the purposes of comparative history; second the vibrant interest of the Ottoman Empire in the outside world in general and in Ireland in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The system of devolution set up in Northern Ireland in 1999 has proved volatile and unstable. In 2017, the Northern Ireland Executive collapsed, following the resignation of the Sinn Féin, deputy First Minister. For a three-year period, Executive and legislative devolution ceased to operate. The UK Government opted not to impose Direct Rule from Westminster, as happened previously. This article examines the consequences of the absence of a devolved government in the context of the existing system of multi-level governance (MLG). It is contended that mitigating action taken or considered to address the gap in governance can be best understood using an analytical framework drawn from the lens of MLG. A range of interventions, adjustments and interactions occurred involving the remaining levels of MLG. Despite the fall of the Executive and Assembly an amended form of governance continued to function in Northern Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1998 Agreement in Northern Ireland has often been portrayed as a textbook example of agonistic peace allowing parties to continue conflict in a political, adversarial manner post accord. Here, I investigate the institutional and dialogical reality of this claim by scrutinising agonistic aspects of interaction occurring in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Specifically, I analyse a video recording of the first sitting after the Assembly did not sit between 2017 and 2020. The debate provides a snapshot of the situation in Northern Ireland and gives insights into what agonistic interaction looks like in practice. The meeting reveals mutual acceptance of radically different identities and perceptions of the past as well as a jovial mode of interaction with elements of self-irony displaying an ability to hold identities and positions lightly. However, the room for counter-hegemonic discourses and passionate, intense contestation about difficult issues is very limited at the meeting. Rather, the Assembly shapes up as a theatre of opposition where Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party perform opposition while forming a new hegemony. Taking the opening debate as a point of departure, I discuss questions regarding inclusion, passionate debate and hegemony that the Northern Irish case poses for agonistic peace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we critically examine how Sinn Féin responded to Brexit, why, and with what consequences. By destabilising the UK's territorial constitution and intensifying debate about Ireland's constitutional future, Brexit has represented a moment of unprecedented opportunity for Irish republicanism. However, this has been offset by the very real political and economic risks it has posed for the island of Ireland. We argue that Sinn Féin's pursuit of 'Special Status' for Northern Ireland represented an attempt to mitigate Brexit's risks, rather than to leverage its opportunities. This approach came with political costs for the party, whose recent electoral surge has arguably been in spite of rather than because of it. We demonstrate how Brexit has served to reshape Sinn Féin's politics, and how it has functioned to further moderate its 'Eurocriticism'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The office of political party leader remains one that women rarely occupy. In the largest comparative study of party leadership to date, only 10.8% were women. One region which has made significant advances in this area is Northern Ireland. Since 2015, the two largest parties, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party, have experienced a rapid feminisation of their leadership. Such a development is particularly remarkable given Northern Ireland's historically poor record on gender equality. This article explores the puzzle of gendered leadership change in Northern Ireland to reveal that the transition was primarily facilitated through the parties' informal practices rather than embedded structural change. In doing so, it demonstrates the relative importance of party- and system-level factors on women's political presence. As a power-sharing democracy, this case also provides comparative insights for those interested in addressing persistently low levels of female representation in post-conflict settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on secret witness reports from Intelligence Officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and diplomatic correspondence from France's representatives to Dublin and London, this article seeks to complement recent historiography and qualify our understanding of the period 1914–18 by engaging fully with the issue of compulsory military service from the outbreak of the conflict. It contemplates how fears of conscription contributed to the radicalisation of rural communities and demonstrates that opposition to conscription formed a solid political foundation for Sinn Féin. Britain's determination to implement conscription to Ireland frightened civilian populations, gave rise to nationwide discontent, and attracted towards Sinn Féin populations likely to be drafted into the British Army. That study seeks to be a re-examination of the dynamics between the Irish revolution and the conscription scares and maintains that fears of compulsory service in Ireland significantly contributed to the victory of Sinn Féin candidates during the four electoral contests in 1917. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Sinn Féin and the DUP have successfully mobilised ethnic tribune strategies in order to secure dominance in the electoral politics of Northern Ireland. Alongside this development, Northern Irish society has become markedly more diverse as a result of increasing inward migration. While immigration has enriched the array of cultural variety in the territory, it has been accompanied by increasing evidence of high profile racism. This raises questions as to how political parties that have profited from ethnic tribune strategies might adapt to the realities of a more diverse society. This paper illustrates the manner in which Sinn Féin and the DUP have approached the issue of racism against ethnic minorities, using an in-depth, qualitative analysis of party language. The data are drawn from a series of interviews with elected representatives, party literature, and from debates in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Two key findings are discussed. Firstly, the paper notes a lack of clarity in the manner in which both parties approach the subjects of racism and sectarianism. Secondly, the paper highlights the process by which varieties of racism experienced by ethnic minorities, have become absorbed by debates traditionally associated with bi-national division in the territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses that Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican political party, has taken the help of the European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH) to establish contacts to penetrate political, diplomatic, and civic society to get support for the Irish Unity referendum as set out in the Good Friday Agreement. The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers will liaise with human rights groups in Ireland to facilitate an international legal fact-finding on behalf of ELDH.

The article investigates the coverage of the War of Independence in the visual and textual materials of Corriere della Sera and La Domenica del Corriere to show why these publications kept a mildly pro-British stance on the conflict while voicing their concerns. These leading publications gave extensive coverage to the Irish struggle for national self-determination, in which members of the Sinn Féin party were depicted as a dangerous minority and Ireland was called "troubled" or "the island without peace". My contention is that such representations were influenced by the editorial staff's fears about the contemporary Italian socio-political situation, nationally and internationally. Therefore, the articles and illustrations on the conflict should be read not only within the framework of the periodicals' usual concern for international politics, but also by considering the anxieties haunting the Italian intellectual elite at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, political parties engage with journalists to promote their agendas and claim issue ownership through publishing manifestos, holding public events and issuing statements, but the coverage that this interaction produces is determined by the editorial focus and decision making of each outlet. In a hybrid media age, political parties can engage in disintermediation by directly shaping their own agenda and communicating with the public using social media, which also facilitate populist messaging. In this article, we use a combination of traditional media and social media data to explore how key issues and parties were mediated during the battle to own 'change' and claim issue ownership in the 2020 election campaign in Ireland. The analysis draws upon coded articles from three mainstream outlets and Facebook posts from the three main parties, along with user engagement data from those Facebook posts. We find that newspaper coverage reflected the framing of a change election. While Fine Gael received the most coverage, both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin show clear attempts to own change through social media, with Sinn Féin in particular 'owning' the most salient election issue of housing while also deploying substantial populist messaging which resulted in the most engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Irish party system has been an outlier in comparative politics. Ireland never had a left-right divide in parliament, and for decades, the dominant centrist political parties competed around a centre-right policy agenda. The absence of an explicit left-right divide in party competition suggested that Irish voters, on average, occupy centre-right policy preferences. Combining survey data since 1973 and all Irish election studies between 2002 and 2020, we show that the average Irish voter now leans to the centre-left. We also show that income has recently emerged as a predictor of left-right self-placement, and that left-right positions increasingly structure vote choice. These patterns hold when using policy preferences on taxes, spending, and government interventions to reduce inequality as alternative indicators. We outline potential explanations for this leftward shift, and conclude that these developments might be anchored in economic inequalities and the left populist strategies of Sinn Féin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]