In the 1918 general election, candidates of the radical Sinn Féin party—including many who had participated in the 1916 rebellion—issued a manifesto which included the statement: "Sinn Féin aims at securing the establishment of that Republic". It also said it would boycott the British Parliament and instead unilaterally establish a new Irish assembly in Dublin. Sinn Féin candidates won a large majority of the seats: 73 out of 105, 25 of them uncontested. On 21 January 1919, 27 of them gathered in the Mansion House in Dublin to establish Dáil Éireann. Thirty-five other members were recorded as being (imprisoned by the foreign enemy) and another four as (deported by the foreign enemy). Thirty-seven others were recorded as not being present (), these were mainly from the northern six counties that would later form Northern Ireland. At this meeting the Dáil adopted the Irish Declaration of Independence. Because of the Easter Proclamation of 1916, the Dáil retrospectively established the Irish Republic from Easter 1916.