100 years of Sinn Fein and Ulster Unionist parties
- UCD Conference Highlights Plural History of Sinn Féin -
1905, for all sorts of reasons, was a fateful year, a year of
significance in both global and Irish terms. In the wider world the
surrender of the Russian Army at Port Arthur, China to the Japanese
shocked the world, Albert Einstein put forward his paradigm-shifting
special theory of relativity, Norway achieved independence from Sweden,
and German doctor, Robert Koch, was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine
for his work on tuberculosis. While here in Ireland Colonel Edward
Saunderson founded the Ulster Unionist Council in Belfast and Arthur
Griffith founded Sinn Fein in Dublin.
Speaking at a major conference to mark the centenary of the founding of
the two organisations, the president of UCD, Dr Hugh Brady said: “It is
instructive to reflect on how insignificant the founding of these two,
opposed, political entities must have appeared in the global context of
the time. 100 years on, the global context is one which we should
embrace as the appropriate one in which to resolve our outstanding
differences; when one considers the global nature of competition, it
really is a case of learning to stand together or fall apart”
Before addressing delegates at the International Conference, An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern and Dr Hugh Brady, President, UCD, view the Minute Book of An Cómhairle Náisiúnta or The National Council of the Sinn Féin Party (1913) which is kept in UCD Archives.
Addressing the conference delegates, An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern said: 'The Government wants next Easter to be an expression of our pride as a nation in all those who took part in the Rising and the subsequent War of Independence. It is my firm intention to mark, in the most inclusive possible manner, the passage into history of both these great achievements and deep wounds associated with the transition to political independence. We will honour both the statesmen who founded the Free State, as well as those who stood by the Republic, recognising that they were all patriots, who shared the same ultimate objective of full national freedom by one route or the other. We will also recall the suffering and loss of that time and emphasise the imperative of building a just and peaceful future for everyone on this island. '
The Taoiseach went on to say: 'The loss of Irish people to war - whether Catholic or Protestant, Nationalist or Unionist, whether on the streets of Dublin or the fields of Flanders - is a tragedy for us all. There are no hierarchies of sacrifice, suffering or loss. Only grieving families and lost potential. In years to come, we must also recognise, with less inhibition, the Unionist contribution and tradition on this island.'
In his keynote address, Ronan Fanning, Professor of Modern History at
UCD addressed the question “Who owns Sinn Féin?”
Referring to the Sinn Féin Funds case of 1947-48, and the Supreme and
High Court judgements it led to, Professor Fanning identified: '...(a)
stark contrast between the national inclusivism of de Valera’s vision
of the Sinn Féin of 1917-22 and the narrow exclusivism of those who,
after 1923, ...regarded Sinn Féin not as a body of persons, but as a
political ideal.' Professor Fanning speculated on whether the
bicentennial event in 2105 might see the Good Friday Agreement of 1998
as marking a moment when 'Sinn Féin finally braced itself for re-
immersion in the current of national life and politics.'
The conference took place over 12th and 13th December at the UCD
William Jefferson Clinton Centre and was organised by the Global Irish
Institute and the Humanities Institute of Ireland, UCD.
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