Sinn Féin for nine years. (It merged with two other organisations to form Fine Gael in 1933.) Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin members continued to boycott the Dáil. At a special "Ard Fheis" in March 1926, de Valera proposed that elected members be allowed to take their seats in the Dáil if and when the controversial Oath of Allegiance was removed. When his motion was defeated, de Valera resigned from Sinn Féin; on 16 May 1926, he founded his own party, Fianna Fáil, which was dedicated to republicanising the Free State from within its political structures. He took most Sinn Féin TDs with him.
Éamon de Valera then the Parliament of Northern Ireland had already met. It became clear that neither a republic, nor independence for all 32 counties, was going to be offered; Lloyd George told de Valera he could "put a soldier in Ireland for every man, woman and child in it" if the IRA did not immediately agree to stop fighting. In August 1921, de Valera secured Dáil Éireann approval to change the 1919 Dáil Constitution to upgrade his office from prime minister or chairman of the cabinet to a full President of the Republic. Declaring himself now the Irish equivalent of King George