Michael O'Flanagan States in April 1925 to help Sinn Féin contest a number of by-elections. That summer he was suspended from clerical duties and forbidden to say mass because of his nationalist activities and anti-clerical speeches he had made in America. In March 1926, the Sinn Féin ard fheis narrowly defeated de Valera's proposal to enter the Free State Oireachtas if the Oath of Allegiance were removed. O'Flanagan sided with the majority. De Valera left to found Fianna Fáil, which eclipsed Sinn Féin at the June 1927 election. O'Flanagan remained with the reduced Sinn Féin. Bishop Coyne died in July 1926, but
History of Sinn Féin between Sinn Féin and the other nationalist parties, north and south. On becoming Taoiseach in 1987, Haughey authorised face-to-face discussions between Martin Mansergh, Head of Research for Fianna Fáil, and Sinn Féin representatives Adams, Pat Doherty and Mitchel McLaughlin. Meetings between the SDLP and Sinn Féin began in January 1988 and continued during the year. Sinn Féin aimed at forming an alliance of Irish nationalist parties for the purpose of achieving self-determination for the whole of Ireland, but the SDLP insisted that this could only happen in the context of an end to IRA violence and the dropping of the