FitzGerald was released in 1918 when he was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Dublin Pembroke constituency. Following the assembly of the First Dáil in 1919, and the declaration of the Irish Republic, he was appointed Director of Publicity for Dáil Éireann, first joining the paper "Nationality" in May to replace the arrested Laurence Ginnell. FitzGerald remarked in the first report he made to the Dáil that 'our chief means of publicity was by means of publicity'. He struggled to make an impression on the British press, who supplied most of Ireland's foreign news.