Patrick Smith (politician) career, Smith being said to have shouted across the floor at Dáil Éireann, "They gave us stepping-stones, but they [state forces in 1922] would not walk on them." A play on the same quote by Irish revolutionary, Michael Collins. He entered the Dáil in September 1923, as a Republican candidate. In 1926, Éamon de Valera, the Leader of Anti-Treaty Sinn Fein, approached Smith and persuaded him to join his newly founded political party, Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fail abandoned the abstentionist policy of Anti Treaty Sinn Fein and its elected members took their seats in Dáil Éireann. De Valera and Smith
Sinn Féin (newspaper) Sinn Féin (newspaper) Sinn Féin was a weekly Irish nationalist newspaper edited by the Dublin typesetter, journalist and political thinker Arthur Griffith. It was published by the Sinn Féin Printing & Publishing Company Ltd. (SFPP) between 1906 and 1914, and replaced an earlier newspaper called the "United Irishman" which was liquidated after a libel suit. The SFPP brought out the "Sinn Féin Daily" in 1909 but had to abandon it when it plunged the company into enormous debt. The "Sinn Féin" weekly and the SFPP both came to an end when they were suppressed by the British Government in 1914.