Sinn Fein Quotes
Sinn Fein has been more and less militant and inclined to use force and terror at different times. In 1919 Collins was distressed because they were on a political tack and Collins though that this was the time for militancy and they could get much of what they wanted.
It did sweep the polls. The Protestant Unionists won 40 seats; Sinn Fein and the Nationaists won only 6 each.
A delegation from Sinn Fein, headed by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, had negotiated a treaty of Irish Independence except that it did not cover Northern Ireland where the majority of the people wanted to stay a part of Britain. For 700 years, the Irish had fought for independence, and finally they got it for the vast majority of Ireland and the overwhelming majority of the Catholics of Ireland. The alternative to agreeing to the treaty was to continue the war between the IRA and the British Troops. At the time, the IRA was just about totally beaten and probably could not hold out another month. De Valera, a very shrewd politician, as the leader of Sinn Fein (and the IRA) would normally have headed the Irish Delegation. But he chose not to because he realized that they would never get independence for all 32 counties of Ireland as the British would not leave the Northern Ireland Protestants to their fates against their will. The best Ireland could get was Independence for all of Catholic majority Ireland. And he knew that public opinion would oppose giving up even one county becuse that was what the leaders had told the people for years. So De Valera let his two associates take the popular blame after he denounced the treaty with his famous quotation. Shortly after that, Michael Collins, the brilliant military Commander of the IRA who signed the treaty was assassinated. To many, it was as if De Valera had pulled the trigger. The treaty was ratified by a single vote by the Dail as there was no army left to fight, and the angry Irish electorate voted for De Valera as Ireland’s first President. The politician won; the patriot died.
