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Sinn Fein (Gaelic for 'We Oursleves') was first established in the early 1900's. After the 1916 rising, Sinn Fein was reorganized into a purely pro-Irish Republic party. In 1922, it had a split when one group section wanted to accept partition and the other wanted to keep up the struggle. For nearly 50 years, it went up and down in support due to the IRA's sporatic campaigns. Then in around 1969/1970, there was another split where one group wanted to become a more peaceful organization and the other wanted to stay in it's current course. From that emerged the Official and Provisional Sinn Fein's. The Official Sinn Fein, mainly centralized in the Republic, turned into a more working-within-the-system type of group. At the start, the Officials were larger than the Provo's but after the armed ally of the Officials called a ceasefire in '72, the Provo Sinn Fein was flooded with people. The Officials did come out in arms once in '75 to have a brief fight with the Irish Republican Socialist Party. The Officials changed their name to Sinn Fein the Workers' Party in 1977, Workers' Party in '82, and Democratic Left in '92. In 1998, there was arguments over support for the Official IRA and there was a split again. The ones who supported them called themselves the Official Republican Movement. They have just about fallen from the map now. |
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