Fianna Fáil Fianna Fáil Fianna Fáil (, meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party (), is a conservative political party in Ireland. The party was founded as an Irish republican party on 23 March 1926 by Éamon de Valera and his supporters after they split from Sinn Féin on the issue of abstentionism, in the aftermath of the Irish Civil War. Fianna Fáil has since 1927 been one of Ireland's two major parties, along with Fine Gael; both are seen as being centre-right parties, and as being to the right of the Labour Party
Éamon de Valera the IRA dumped their arms rather than surrender them or continue a now fruitless war, de Valera returned to political methods. In 1924, he was arrested in Newry for "illegally entering Northern Ireland" and held in solitary confinement for a month in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast. During this time, de Valera came to believe that abstentionism was not a workable tactic in the long term. He now believed that a better course would be to try to gain power and turn the Free State from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. He tried to convince Sinn Féin to accept this