48-517: The United Irishman was an Irish nationalist newspaper co-founded by Arthur Griffith and William Rooney . It was first published on 4 March 1899 and ran from 1899 to 1906. Contributors included Oliver St. John Gogarty , Pádraig Pearse , Maud Gonne and Roger Casement . The writer James Joyce is quoted as saying that the United Irishman was "the only newspaper of pretensions in Ireland". In 1906
96-422: A subarachnoid haemorrhage , but it was difficult to keep him quiet, and he resumed his daily work in the government building. He had been about to leave for his office shortly before 10 a.m. on 12 August 1922, when he paused to retie his shoelace and fell down unconscious. He regained consciousness but collapsed again with blood coming from his mouth. Three doctors rendered assistance but to no avail. Fr John Lee of
144-574: A by-election in North Leitrim , where the sitting MP, one Charles Dolan of Manorhamilton , County Leitrim , had defected to Sinn Féin. At this time Sinn Féin was being infiltrated by the Irish Republican Brotherhood , who saw it as a vehicle for their aims; it had several local Councillors (mostly in Dublin, including W. T. Cosgrave ) and contained a dissident wing grouped from 1910 around
192-420: A piece which defended English Jew Matthew Nathan - "We do not know of one Nationalist Irishman who objects to Sir Matthew Nathan because of the religion he professes, or who holds the creed that an Irish Jew should be ineligible for any office he was competent to fill in an Irish government". Griffith was a close friend of Jewish solicitor Michael Noyk , who defended many IRA members in courts martial during
240-955: Is shown by a "radical shift" in his journalism. Already in 1903, he had endorsed the Temperance–Labour Councillor Albert L. Altman , a Jew, for election to Dublin Corporation. In 1909, he wrote a favourable article in Sinn Féin on the Jewish contribution to European civilisation, and in Nationality in 1915, he railed against the Irish Parliamentary Party for saying that Jews should be barred from public office. Griffith's publication 'Scissors and Paste' published three separate articles sympathetic to Jewish victims of Eastern European pogroms and in 1915 his 'Nationality' published
288-777: Is their wont, to crush the Christian who dares to block their path or to point them out for what they are — nine-tenths of them— usurers and parasites of industry. and excluded from this criticism was the Zionist minority of the Jews, who include those honest and patriotic Jews who desire the reestablishment of the Hebrew nation in Palestine. From 1904 until his death, Griffith wrote virtually nothing which could be construed as antisemitic. Historian Colum Kenny writes that Griffith's "thinking developed" which
336-606: The Anglo-Irish relationship, namely that Ireland should become a separate kingdom alongside Great Britain, the two forming a dual monarchy with a shared monarch but separate governments, as it was thought this solution would be more palatable to the British. This was similar to the policy of Henry Grattan a century earlier. However, this idea was never really embraced by later separatist leaders, especially Michael Collins , and never came to anything, although Kevin O'Higgins toyed with
384-492: The Boers in their campaign against British expansionism and was a supporter of Paul Kruger . In 1899, on returning to Dublin , Griffith co-founded the weekly United Irishman newspaper with his associate William Rooney , who died in 1901. On 24 November 1910, Griffith married Maud Sheehan, after a six-year engagement; they had a son and a daughter. Griffith's fierce criticism of the Irish Parliamentary Party 's alliance with
432-627: The Irish Civil War . Griffith died suddenly in August 1922, two months after the outbreak of that war. Arthur Joseph Griffith was born at 61 Upper Dominick Street , Dublin on 31 March 1871, of distant Welsh lineage. His great-great-grandfather, William Griffith of Drws-y-coed Uchaf, Rhyd-ddu , Caernarvonshire (1719-1782), was a farmer and supporter of the Moravian Church cause. His great grandfather, Griffith Griffith (b. 1789), emigrated first to
480-528: The Irish War of Independence , and served as an official in the First Dáil Department of Finance and as a Dáil Court judge during the war. Other Jewish Friends included Dr Edward Lipman, Jacob Elyan and Dr Bethel Solomons . Noyk and Solomons were among a group of friends who purchased a house for Griffith when he married. Griffith held racist views towards Black people; in a preface he authored for
528-627: The Marist Fathers administered extreme unction , and Griffith died as the priest recited the concluding prayer. The cause of death, cerebral haemorrhage , was also reported as being due to heart failure. He died at the age of 51, ten days before Michael Collins ' death in an ambush in County Cork . He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery four days later. The historian Diarmaid Ferriter considers that, though he had founded Sinn Féin, Griffith
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#1732851856758576-599: The Proportional Representation Society of Ireland , believing that proportional representation would help to prevent animosity between unionists and nationalists in an independent Ireland. In 1916, rebels seized and took over a number of key locations in Dublin, in what became known as the Easter Rising . After its defeat, it was widely described both by British politicians and the Irish and British media as
624-499: The United Irishman collapsed under a libel suit and was refounded as Sinn Féin , which ran until 1914 when it was suppressed by the British government . This Ireland newspaper–related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Arthur Griffith Arthur Joseph Griffith ( Irish : Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha ; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded
672-687: The United States and then to Ireland, where some of his sisters had settled in Dublin among the Moravian community there. A Roman Catholic, Griffith was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers . He worked for a time as a printer before joining the Gaelic League , which was aimed at promoting the restoration of the Irish language . His father had been a printer on The Nation newspaper — Griffith
720-546: The "Cyclops" episode. In 1904, a piece in the paper voiced support for the Limerick boycott , a boycott of Jewish businesses in Limerick organised by a local priest, declaring that the Jew in Limerick has not been boycotted because he is a Jew, but because he is a usurer " and that " If Jews —as Jews— were boycotted, it would be outrageously unjust. Griffith was apparently unaware that
768-463: The "Sinn Féin rebellion", even though Sinn Féin had very limited involvement. Griffith was detained, being released from Reading Gaol at the end of 1916. When in 1917, surviving leaders of the rebellion were released from gaol (or escaped) they joined Sinn Féin en masse , using it as a vehicle for the advancement of the republic. The result was a bitter clash between those original members who backed Griffith's concept of an Anglo-Irish dual monarchy and
816-749: The 1913 edition of John Mitchel's Jail Journal , Griffith argued that "no excuses were needed for an Irish Nationalist declining to hold the Negro his peer in right". However while in South Africa, he opposed the exploitation of blacks by whites and he expressed appreciation that the Russo-Japanese War which led to a Russian defeat had destroyed "the prestige of the white face" in India. Meanwhile Griffith's newspapers, United Irishman and Sinn Féin , both produced sympathetic coverage of Indian nationalists . Griffith
864-630: The 1916 leader Éamon de Valera , becoming vice-president instead. Griffith was elected as an MP for East Cavan in a by-election in June 1918, and re-elected in the 1918 general election , when Sinn Féin won a huge electoral victory over the Irish Parliamentary Party and, refusing to take their seats at Westminster, set up their own constituent assembly, Dáil Éireann . In the Dáil, Griffith served as Minister for Home Affairs from 1919 to 1921, and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1921 to 1922. In September 1921, he
912-597: The British Liberal Party was heavily influenced by the anti-Liberal rhetoric of Young Irelander John Mitchel . Griffith supported the Limerick boycott , advocating shunning Jewish-owned businesses in the city. Griffith also supported movements seeking national independence from the British Empire in Egypt and India , and wrote a highly-critical description of the British government action at Matabele . He opposed
960-548: The British government (Griffith attended 41 of the 42 provisional government meetings held between 23 June and 30 July), and the work involved in establishing the Free State government, he entered St. Vincent's Nursing Home, Leeson Street , Dublin, during the first week of August 1922, following an acute attack of tonsillitis. He was confined to a room in St Vincent's by his doctors, who had observed signs of what they thought might be
1008-553: The Dáil, which he lost by a vote of 60 to 58. Griffith then succeeded de Valera as President of Dáil Éireann. A second ratification of the Treaty by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland followed shortly afterwards. Griffith was, however, to a great extent merely a figurehead as President of the Second Dáil . Suffering from overwork and strain after the long and difficult negotiations with
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#17328518567581056-563: The Dáil; negotiations closed at 2.20 a.m. on 6 December 1921. Griffith was the member of the treaty delegation most supportive of its eventual outcome, a compromise based on dominion status, rather than a republic. Griffith was content for an independent Irish State to remain within the British Empire or British Commonwealth as it soon would become. The Treaty was ratified by the Dáil by 64 votes to 57 on 7 January 1922. On 9 January, de Valera stood down as president and sought re-election by
1104-565: The IPP rubbished as unrealistic, although it would ultimately mean the defeat and dissolution of the IPP after the election in December 1918. In May 1918, along with Éamon de Valera and 72 other Sinn Féiners, Griffith was arrested on the pretext of involvement in the fictitious German Plot . Griffith spent ten months interned in HM Prison Gloucester , being released on 6 March 1919. Fr. O'Flanagan
1152-568: The IRB and the Irish Republican Army 's Director of Intelligence. During de Valera's absence in the United States (1919–21) Griffith served as Acting President and gave regular press interviews. He was arrested at his house at 3 am, on 26 November 1920, and later jailed, Fr. O'Flanagan again taking over as acting leader until de Valera returned from America on 23 December. Griffith was to spend
1200-475: The Jews of Limerick had little or no involvement in moneylending or similar practices. The United Irishman also published articles by Oliver St. John Gogarty that contained antisemitic sentiments, which were common in the Ireland of the time. During this time an article in the United Irishman also expressed positive views towards Zionism ; while The Jews of Great Britain and Ireland have united, as
1248-552: The Sinn Féin League, which itself had been formed from an amalgamation of Cumann na nGaedheal and the Dungannon Clubs, to form what would become Sinn Féin. In 1906, after the United Irishman journal collapsed because of a libel suit, Griffith re-founded it under the title Sinn Féin . It briefly became a daily in 1909 and survived until its suppression by the British government in 1914, after which Griffith became editor of
1296-464: The United Kingdom at Westminster , but should instead establish a separate Irish parliament (with an administrative system based on local government) in Dublin. Griffith was a staunch economic nationalist , he argued that nationalism was central to the fostering of economic growth. He often cited the works of German economist Friedrich List . In February 1908, Sinn Féin unsuccessfully contested
1344-567: The chance." In late 1899 The United Irishman published an article by Griffith that stated: "I have in former years often declared that the Three Evil Influences of the century were the Pirate, the Freemason, and the Jew." The antisemitism found in the pages of the United Irishman during Griffth's editorial tenure has been credited with shaping various aspects of Joyce's Ulysses , especially in
1392-518: The forty or fifty thousand Jewish usurers and pick- pockets in each country and which no decent Christian ever reads except holding his nose as a precaution against nausea. Other editorials in Griffith's United Irishman that year expressed concern about a conspiracy where "the Jew capitalist has got a grip on the lying "Press of Civilization" from Vienna to New York and further" , and concluded "we know that all Jews are pretty sure to be traitors if they get
1440-459: The grounds of Leinster House commemorates Griffith, as well as Michael Collins and Kevin O'Higgins . As editor of the United Irishman , Griffith took an " Anti-Dreyfusard " line, writing in 1899 to defend the conviction of "the Jew traitor" Dreyfus; accusing the Dublin press of being "almost all Jew rags" ; and decrying Fifty other rags like those which have nothing behind them but
1488-451: The idea as a means of ending partition , shortly before his assassination in 1927. Griffith sought to combine elements of Parnellism with the traditional separatist approach; he saw himself not as a leader but as providing a strategy which a new leader might follow. Central to his strategy was parliamentary abstention : the belief that Irish MPs should refuse to attend the Parliament of
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1536-490: The monthly periodical called Irish Freedom . The IRB members argued that the aim of dual monarchism should be replaced by republicanism and that Griffith was excessively inclined to compromise with conservative elements (notably in his pro-employer position during the 1913–1914 Dublin Lockout when he saw the syndicalism of James Larkin as aimed at crippling Irish industry for Great Britain's benefit). In 1911, he helped to found
1584-520: The new Irish cabinet. In September 1921, de Valera, President of the Republic, asked Griffith to head the delegation of Irish plenipotentiaries to negotiate with the British government. The delegates set up Headquarters in Hans Place , London . After nearly two months of negotiations, on 5 December, the delegates decided in a private conversation in their headquarters to sign the Treaty and recommended it to
1632-511: The new members, under Éamon de Valera , who wanted to achieve a republic. Matters almost led to a split at the party's Ard Fheis (conference) in October 1917. In a compromise, it was decided to seek to establish a republic initially, then allow the people to decide whether they wanted a republic or a monarchy, subject to the condition that no member of Britain's royal house could sit on any prospective Irish throne. At that Ard Fheis, Griffith resigned
1680-625: The new nationalist journal, Nationality . Most historians opt for 28 November 1905 as a founding date because it was on this date that Griffith first presented his 'Sinn Féin Policy'. In his writings, Griffith declared that the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 was illegal and that, consequently, the Anglo-Irish dual monarchy that existed under Grattan's Parliament and the so-called Constitution of 1782 were still in effect. Its first president
1728-399: The next seven months in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison . He was released on 30 June 1921 as peace moves got underway. In Ireland, a general election was held on 24 May 1921 and Griffith, while still in prison, headed the poll in the contested constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone , and was returned unopposed for Cavan . On 26 August 1921, Griffith was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in
1776-403: The organisation was still small. Griffith was arrested following the Easter Rising of 1916, despite not having taken any part in it. On his release, he worked to build up Sinn Féin, which won a string of by-election victories. At the party's Ardfheis (annual convention) in October 1917, Sinn Féin became an unambiguously republican party, and Griffith resigned the presidency in favour of
1824-576: The policies of James Larkin , but worked with James Connolly , who was a nationalist as well as a socialist. In September 1900, he established an organisation called Cumann na nGaedheal ("Society of the Gaels"), to unite advanced nationalist and separatist groups and clubs. In 1903, he set up the National Council, to campaign against the visit to Ireland of King Edward VII and his consort Alexandra of Denmark . In 1907, that organisation merged with
1872-503: The political party Sinn Féin . He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that produced the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty , and served as the president of Dáil Éireann from January 1922 until his death later in August. After a short spell in South Africa , Griffith founded and edited the Irish nationalist newspaper The United Irishman in 1899. In 1904, he wrote The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland , which advocated
1920-407: The presidency of Sinn Féin in favour of de Valera; he and Fr. Michael O'Flanagan were elected Vice-Presidents. The leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) sought a rapprochement with Griffith over the British threat of conscription , which both parties condemned, but Griffith refused unless the IPP embraced his more radical and subversive ideals, a suggestion which John Dillon , a leader of
1968-528: The withdrawal of Irish members from the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the setting up of the institutions of government at home in Ireland, a policy that became known as Sinn Féin (ourselves). On 28 November 1905, he presented "The Sinn Féin Policy" at the first annual convention of his organisation, the National Council; the occasion is marked as the founding date of the Sinn Féin party. Griffith took over as president of Sinn Féin in 1911, but at that time
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2016-522: Was Edward Martyn . The fundamental principles of abstentionism on which Sinn Féin was founded were outlined in an article published in 1904, by Griffith called The Resurrection of Hungary , in which, notes how in 1867 Hungary went from being part of the Austrian Empire to a separate co-equal kingdom in Austria-Hungary . Though not a monarchist himself, Griffith advocated such an approach for
2064-726: Was 'quickly airbrushed' from Irish history. His widow had to beg his former colleagues for a pension, saying that he 'had made them all'. She considered that his grave plot was too modest and threatened to exhume his body. Only in 1968 was a plaque fixed on his former Clontarf home on St Lawrence Road. Griffith Barracks which is now Griffith College Dublin on South Circular Road, Dublin , Griffith Avenue in North Dublin, Griffith Park in Drumcondra and Arthur Griffith Park in Lucan, County Dublin are named after him. An obelisk erected in 1950 in
2112-544: Was appointed chairman of the Irish delegation to negotiate a treaty with the British government. After months of negotiations, he and the other four delegates signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty , which created the Irish Free State , but not as a republic. This led to a split in the Dáil. After the Treaty was narrowly approved by the Dáil, de Valera resigned as president and Griffith was elected in his place. The split led to
2160-515: Was left as Acting-President of Sinn Féin. Griffith was put forward as a Sinn Féin candidate for the East Cavan by-election on 20 June 1918. Under the slogan "Put him in to get him out," and was elected. and held the seat when Sinn Féin subsequently routed the Irish Parliamentary Party at the 1918 general election with a commitment of abstentionism from the British House of Commons . Griffith
2208-417: Was one of several employees locked out in the early 1890s due to a dispute with a new owner of the paper. The young Griffith was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). He initially supported Parnell's political views but then decided that Parnell's political outlook was not what he thought was best for Ireland. Griffith visited South Africa from 1896 to 1898. In South Africa, Griffith supported
2256-666: Was particularly interested in India's Swadeshi movement . Rhyd-ddu Rhyd-ddu ( / ˌ r iː d ˈ ð iː / ; Welsh: [ˌr̥iːdˈðiː] ; lit. ' black ford ' ) is a small village in Snowdonia , North Wales which is a starting point for walks up Snowdon (via the Rhyd Ddu Path ), Moel Hebog , Yr Aran and the Nantlle Ridge . It lies on the A4085 between Beddgelert and Caernarfon , at its junction with
2304-481: Was returned for both East Cavan and Tyrone North West . Sinn Féin's MPs set up an Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann and declared independence for the Irish Republic ; the Irish War of Independence followed almost immediately. The dominant leaders in the Dáil included Éamon de Valera, President of Dáil Éireann (1919–21), President of the Republic (1921–1922), and Michael Collins , Minister for Finance , head of
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