Éamon de Valera Irish independence. He was arrested, sentenced to death but released for a variety of reasons, including the public response to the British execution of Rising leaders. He returned to Ireland after being jailed in England and became one of the leading political figures of the War of Independence. After the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, de Valera served as the political leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein until 1926, when he, along with many supporters, left the party to set up Fianna Fáil, a new political party which abandoned the policy of abstentionism from Dáil Éireann. From there, de Valera would
Sinn Féin Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( ; ; is a left-wing Irish republican political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It took its current form in 1970 after a split within the party (with the other side becoming the Workers' Party of Ireland) and has historically been associated with the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Mary Lou McDonald has been party president since February 2018. Sinn Féin is the largest nationalist party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the joint-largest overall (alongside the Democratic