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
United Irishman United Irishman The United Irishman was an Irish nationalist newspaper co-founded by Arthur Griffith and William Rooney. It was first published on the 4th of March 1899 and ran from 1899 to 1906. Contributors included Oliver St. John Gogarty, Padraig Pearse, Maud Gonne and Roger Casement. The writer James Joyce is quoted as saying that the United Irishman was "the only newspaper of pretensions in Ireland". In 1906 the "United Irishman" collapsed under a libel suit and was refounded as "Sinn Féin", which ran until 1914 when it was suppressed by the British government. A Most Seditious Lot: The Militant-Separatist