X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Sinn Féin


Commonwealth Police

Hughes claimed Australia was at risk from possible revolt or similar action by organisations associated with either Irish nationalism, left wing and anti-war activities, such as Sinn Féin and the Industrial Workers of the World.

Executive of the 2nd Northern Ireland Assembly

Following the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2002 a new election was called in November 2003 in hope of restoring devolution, the election saw the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin emerge as the largest parties in the Assembly.

First Minister and deputy First Minister

This procedure, which removed the need for a joint ticket between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin, was used to appoint Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness on 8 May 2007.

National Grammar Schools Association

However there are current well-formed proposals, largely (if not solely) driven by Sinn Féin, to turn Northern Ireland comprehensive.

Ourselves

Sinn Féin, a series of 20th-century Irish political movements

Paul Loughran

During the 1980s when the real voice of Gerry Adams, the spokesman for Sinn Féin, was forbidden to be broadcast in Britain, Loughran's voice dubbed into recordings of him broadcast on British airwaves.

Return to Killybegs

The narrative is inspired by the 2006 murder of Denis Donaldson, a senior Sinn Féin member who was revealed as a British secret agent.


2010 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland

The election saw Sinn Féin win the most votes (at a Westminster election for the very first time), and the Democratic Unionist Party win most seats.

2012 North Belfast riots

In another incident during a different parade, a Shankill based Loyalist band "The Young Conway Volunteers" was filmed by a Sinn Féin activist playing the "The Famine Song" outside St Patricks Catholic Church in Ardoyne.

Alfred Byrne

He was defeated by Philip Shanahan of Sinn Féin, in the 1918 general election.

Average worker's wage

Examples of people taking only an average worker's wage are Socialist Party politician Joe Higgins, former MP Dave Nellist in the UK, John Marek, Forward Wales' Welsh Assembly member for Wrexham, and Sinn Féin politicians in Ireland.

Carál Ní Chuilín

Ní Chuilín was elected in 2007 to the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Sinn Féin member for North Belfast.

Coleraine Borough Council

district MLAs = East Londonderry
DUP: 3
Independent: 1
Sinn Féin: 1
SDLP

Dungannon and South Tyrone Borough Council

district MLAs = Fermanagh & South Tyrone & Mid Ulster
Sinn Féin: 6
DUP: 1
SDLP: 1
UUP

Edgar Graham

Journalist Ed Moloney, in his 2003 book, "A Secret History of the IRA", contends that Graham's killing was ordered by a restive IRA unit, the Belfast Brigade and Ivor Bell, as part of a campaign that was a direct challenge to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams' call for a more "controlled and disciplined" campaign twined with a growing parliamentary strategy.

Edward MacLysaght

The execution of close friends such as Conor Clune of Quin in November 1920 and the subsequent devastating raids on his farm resulted in his playing a far more active role in Sinn Féin as a loyal supporter of the new TD for Clare, Éamon de Valera.

Fáinne

The effectiveness of the organisation was acknowledged in the Dáil Éireann on 6 August 1920, when Richard Mulcahy, the Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Clontarf suggested that a league on the model of the Fáinne for the support of Irish manufactures might be established.

Federation of Irish Fishermen

The protest moved on to Government Buildings later in the day, and was supported by MEP Kathy Sinnott, Sinn Féin TD Arthur Morgan, and former unsuccessful (Labour Party/Socialist Workers Party/Independent) election candidate and Gombeen man, Michael O'Sullivan.

Fergal O'Hanlon

His brother Eighneachán Ó hAnnluain was elected a Sinn Féin abstentionist TD in the 1957 general election to Dáil Éireann.

Fianna Fáil

Former MLA Gerry McHugh, who had defected from Sinn Féin in 2007 and had joined Fianna Fáil as in individual member, but did not contest the 2011 Assembly elections.

Frank Dolphin

The new call centre, and its potential for employment, received praise from Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment minister Arlene Foster and Martina Anderson of Sinn Féin.

Frenchpark

A distant cousin of the de Freynes was Charlotte Despard (née French) (1844–1939), a scion of the French family of High Lake, a British-born, later Irish-based suffragist, novelist and Sinn Féin activist.

Jimbo Simpson

Indeed Sinn Féin's North Belfast spokesman, Gerry Kelly had called on the Housing Executive to move the peace lines in order to build new housing for Catholics, a statement Simpson interpreted as the same sort of encroachment that had brought him to the UDA in the first place.

John McKeague

With John McClure he contacted Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Joe Cahill of Sinn Féin and initiated talks in an attempt to find a common platform for an independent Northern Ireland.

Joseph MacManus

The Sligo West Ward Cumann of Sinn Féin is named the Joseph MacManus Cumann in honour of MacManus and there is an annual lecture given in his name which has been addressed by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, Pat Doherty, Pearse Doherty, Aengus O Snodaigh and Gerry Adams in recent years.

Kenneth Bigley

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams made two appeals, one on 30 September and a second on 7 October.

Máire Nic an Bhaird

Nic an Bhaird is a native speaker of Irish and attending Belfast's Irish language secondary school, Coláiste Feirste, where she was taught by Sinn Féin MEP Bairbre de Brún.

Margaret Skinnider

The current president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, quoted Skinnider's stirring words in his 2006 address to the Sinn Féin Ard Feis.

Members of the 1st Dáil

Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party, but refused to attend the British House of Commons in Westminster.

Newry and Mourne District Council

district MLAs = Newry and Armagh & South Down
Sinn Féin: 5
SDLP: 3
DUP: 2
UUP

Nicholas Kearns

On 12 July 2010, the High Court granted leave to Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty for a judicial review into why a by-election was not being held.

Partitionism

In 2009, Sinn Féin MLA Martin McGuinness used the term in denouncing Lord Mayor of Dublin Eibhlin Byrne who had suggested it was "unpatriotic" for people from the Republic of Ireland to go shopping for cheaper prices in Northern Ireland.

Richard James Ayre

In 1988 the then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd banned Sinn Féin from the airwaves in response to Irish Republican Army bombing campaigns.

St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton

Another sister, Albinia, became an early supporter of Sinn Féin and became well known in Ireland under the name Gobnait Ní Bhruadair.

Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six

The song was subsequently banned from being broadcast by the Independent Broadcasting Authority under laws which were also responsible for a ban on the broadcasting of direct interviews with members of Sinn Féin and other groups.

UK Unionist Party

It was also highly critical of the British Labour government of Tony Blair for allowing Sinn Féin to participate in the Northern Irish government prior to the IRA fully disarming.

Ulster Unionist Coalition Party

Following a split in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) majority bloc in Ballymena in 2007, six councillors who objected to the DUP's agreement to share power in the Northern Ireland Executive with Sinn Féin left the DUP and redesignated themselves as the "Ulster Unionist Coalition Party".

West Brit

Irish presidential election, 2011: During his campaign Sinn Féin candidate Martin McGuinness criticised what he called "West Brit" elements of the media who he said were out to undermine his attempt to win the election.

West Cork by-election, 1916

2Healy was imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp for supposedly being associated with Sinn Féin, but Sinn Féin repudiated his candidacy for not revoking to take his seat at Westminster, instead had been supported by William O'Brien, who was leader of the All-for-Ireland League.

Willie O'Dea

On 10 March 2009, O'Dea alleged in an interview with the Limerick Leader that a brothel had been operating in a house owned by Nessan Quinlivan, brother of Maurice Quinlivan, a Sinn Féin candidate in Limerick for the upcoming June 2009 local elections.

Willie O'Dea affidavit controversy

The apartment had been rented out to them by Nessan Quinlivan, a former Provisional IRA volunteer and the brother of Sinn Féin candidate for Limerick City Council Maurice Quinlivan.


see also

1988–94 British broadcasting voice restrictions

Research by the Glasgow Media Group indicates that coverage of Sinn Féin by the BBC before the ban was minimal.

A Star Called Henry

Energized by Sinn Féin's victory in the General Election of 1918 and the party's establishment of the independent Irish Republic, Henry participates in the Soloheadbeg Ambush, the first engagement of the Irish War of Independence, as a lookout.

Brian Ervine

At David Ervine's funeral, Brian Ervine was pictured in the international media standing next to his brother's widow, Jeanette Ervine, while she was embraced by the president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams.

Gerald O'Sullivan

Gearóid O'Sullivan (1891–1948), Irish teacher, army officer, barrister and Sinn Féin and Fine Gael politician.

Gerry McGeough

He put himself forward as a protest against Sinn Féin's vote in January 2007 to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), a key provision of the St Andrews Agreement.

In 2007, McGeough declared he would be standing for election in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections against Sinn Féin in the Fermanagh and South Tyrone constituency.

James McGuinness

Martin McGuinness (James Martin Pacelli McGuinness, born 1950), Irish Sinn Féin politician and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland

Lucilita Bhreatnach

Growing up in Dublin, Bhreatnach joined Sinn Féin at the age of sixteen and was subsequently active in the Anti H-Block campaign, becoming the Chair of the Stop Strip-Searching Campaign.

MacSwiney

Terence MacSwiney (1879–1920), Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork during the Irish War of Independence, died on hunger strike in British jail

Martin Ferris

In February 2005, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell, using parliamentary privilege, named Ferris, as well as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, as members of the IRA Army Council, an allegation that has been denied by Ferris and the Sinn Féin leadership.

Murder of Michaela McAreavey

Notables to visit the wake included Cardinal Edward Daly; 1992 All-Ireland winning manager Brian McEniff; GAA President Christy Cooney, Northern Ireland's First Minister and deputy First Ministers, the Democratic Unionist Peter Robinson and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness; sports minister Nelson McCausland, enterprise minister Arlene Foster and justice committee chairman Maurice Morrow, Baron Morrow.

Orange Volunteers

02 Dec 2008: Sinn Féin minister Conor Murphy claimed to have been told by the Police Service of Northern Ireland of a recent attempt on his life by the OV in the Newry area.

Padraig O'Malley

Senior negotiators from Northern Ireland (NI), including Martin McGuinness from Sinn Féin, currently Deputy First Minister of NI, Jeffrey Donaldson from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Ripple, Kent

His sister Charlotte Despard, the suffragist, novelist and Sinn Féin activist was also born in Ripple in 1844.

Roy Greenslade

He has had a house in County Donegal for many years, and a close personal friend is Pat Doherty, whom from 1988 until 2009 was vice president of Sinn Fein, and who has been publicly named as a former member of the IRA Army Council.

Ruairí Ó Brádaigh

Among those joining him in Provisional Sinn Féin was his brother, Seán Ó Brádaigh, the first Director of Publicity for Provisional Sinn Féin.

Siobhán O'Hanlon

O'Hanlon was a member of the first Sinn Féin delegation to meet the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street in December 1997.

Southern Ireland

The first general election to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland in 1921, and the simultaneous general election to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, was used by Sinn Féin to produce a single extrajudicial parliament, the Second Dáil.

The Resurrection of Hungary

Instead it was split between republicans (those associated with the Easter Rising in 1916 and who had subsequently joined Sinn Féin) who advocated the creation of a new republic with an elected head of state, and those who advocated the creation of an Irish monarchy, albeit now with a monarch chosen from any royal house but the House of Windsor.

United Irelander

With the 2007 General Election approaching, several TDs have been interviewed including Labour's Tommy Broughan, Sinn Féin's Arthur Morgan and Independent Tony Gregory.