Official Sinn Féin (aka "Sinn Féin the Workers Party") evolved from the split in Sinn Féin and the IRA that took place in 1970.

Sinn Féin split of 1970

The leadership of both Sinn Féin and the IRA had developed a Marxist outlook that became unpopular with many more traditionalist nationalists/republicans; and the party/army leadership was criticized for failing to defend northern Catholic enclaves from loyalist attacks. A large segment of the party set up their own Provisional Army Council in late 1969 to address these concerns and draft a new party policy; however, at the January 1970 party assembly, the "Provisionals" failed to secure the necessary votes to change the party direction. Immediately, the Provisionals left the existing party, thereby forming the Provisional Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA. The remainder of the party became known as Official Sinn Féin. Similarly, the associated paramilitary group was referred to as the Official IRA and the movement as a whole as the official republican movement, or informally the Officials or Stickies.

Official Sinn Féin - from republican militancy to Marxist politics

The official republican movement gradually stepped down its military campaign against the United Kingdom's armed forces presence in Northern Ireland, declaring a ceasefire in 1972, and focused on electoral activity. It suffered a further split in 1974, when members dissatisfied with the ceasefire established the Irish National Liberation Army and its associated political party the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

Politically, Official Sinn Féin evolved towards Marxism-Leninism and became fiercely critical of the physical force republican tradition still espoused by Provisional Sinn Féin. Its new approach to the Northern conflict was typified by the slogan it was to adopt: "Peace, Democracy, Class Politics". It aimed to replace sectarian politics with a class struggle which would unite Catholic and Protestant workers. The slogan's echo of Lenin's "Peace, Bread, Land" was indicative of the party's new source of inspiration. Official Sinn Féin also built up fraternal relations with communist parties worldwide. In 1977 it changed its name to Sinn Féin The Workers Party and then in 1982 to The Workers Party. From 1982 on it had some electoral success in the Republic of Ireland but little in the North.

In 1992, in the wake of media claims that the Official IRA was still operating and in an atmosphere of ideological disagreement after the collapse of Soviet-style socialism, six of the Workers Party's seven Teachtaí Dála (members of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas or Irish Parliament) left to form a new party, Democratic Left, which in 1997 merged with the Irish Labour Party. Since the split with Democratic Left, the Workers Party has re-emphasised its Marxist-Leninist outlook, while also placing more emphasis than before on its republican tradition and origins. Since the 1992 general election, the Workers Party has had no representation in Dáil Éireann, although it has contested most recent national and local elections in both the Republic and Northern Ireland.

Provisional Sinn Féin, the other party to emerge from the 1970 split, is the party that is now commonly referred to simply as Sinn Féin. They have had much greater electoral success than Official Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland. However, their electoral performance in the Republic was poor until the IRA ceasefire of 1997.

The official republican movement was nicknamed the "Stickies" for wearing stick-on "Easter lily" badges on their lapels in remembrance of the 1916 Easter Rising. The competing badges produced by the Provisionals were pinned on, but the nickname "pinhead" did not gain much currency.

Further reading

• The Politics of Illusion: A Political History of the IRA, Henry Patterson, ISBN 1-897959-31-1

See also

• Sinn Féin

External links

• The Workers Party (http://www.workers-party.org/)
• BBC: Paramilitaries - Official IRA (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/factfiles/ira.shtml)