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
William Bulfin Cross", and shortly afterwards he was both proprietor and editor of that paper. The sketches he wrote were published in "The Southern Cross" and also, due to his friendship with Arthur Griffith, in the "United Irishman" and "Sinn Féin". Eventually they reached the "New York Daily News". They were published in book form in 1907 by Gill. In 1902 he wrote "Rambles In Eirinn", a well-regarded account of his travels around Ireland by bicycle on his return to his homeland. He became ill during a visit to the United States fundraising with The O'Rahilly for Arthur Griffith's newspaper "Sinn Fein".