Arthur Griffith

Arthur Joseph Griffith (Irish: Art Seosamh Ó Gríobhtha or Art Ó Gríofa; 31 March 1871 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Féin. He led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that produced the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, and served as the president of Dáil Éireann from January 1922 until his death that August.

After a short spell in South Africa, Griffith founded and edited the Irish nationalist newspaper The United Irishman in 1899. In 1904, he wrote The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland, which advocated the withdrawal of Irish members from the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the setting up of the institutions of government at home in Ireland, a policy that became known as Sinn Féin (ourselves). On 28 November 1905, he presented "The Sinn Féin Policy" at the first annual convention of his organisation, the National Council; the occasion is marked as the founding date of the Sinn Féin party. Griffith took over as president of Sinn Féin in 1911, but at that time the organisation was still small.

Griffith was arrested following the Easter Rising of 1916, despite not having taken any part in it. On his release, he worked to build up Sinn Féin, which won a string of by-election victories. At the party's Ardfheis (annual convention) in October 1917, Sinn Féin became an unambiguously republican party, and Griffith resigned the presidency in favour of the 1916 leader Éamon de Valera, becoming vice-president instead. Griffith was elected as an MP for East Cavan in a by-election in June 1918, and re-elected in the 1918 general election, when Sinn Féin won a huge electoral victory over the Irish Parliamentary Party and, refusing to take their seats at Westminster, set up their own constituent assembly, Dáil Éireann.

In the Dáil, Griffith served as Minister for Home Affairs from 1919 to 1921, and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1921 to 1922. In September 1921, he was appointed chairman of the Irish delegation to negotiate a treaty with the British government. After months of negotiations, he and the other four delegates signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which created the Irish Free State, but not as a republic. This led to a split in the Dáil. After the Treaty was narrowly approved by the Dáil, de Valera resigned as president and Griffith was elected in his place. The split led to the Irish Civil War. Griffith died suddenly in August 1922, two months after the outbreak of that war.

Arthur Joseph Griffith was born at 61 Upper Dominick Street, Dublin on 31 March 1871, of distant Welsh lineage. His great-great-grandfather, William Griffith of Drws-y-coed Uchaf, Rhyd-ddu, Caernarfonshire (1719–1782), was a farmer and supporter of the Moravian Church cause. His great-grandfather, Griffith Griffith (b. 1789), emigrated first to the United States and then to Ireland, where some of his sisters had settled in Dublin among the Moravian community there. A Roman Catholic, Griffith was educated by the Irish Christian Brothers. He worked for a time as a printer before joining the Gaelic League, which was aimed at promoting the restoration of the Irish language.

His father had been a printer on The Nation newspaper — Griffith was one of several employees locked out in the early 1890s due to a dispute with a new owner of the paper. The young Griffith was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). Later in life he came to feel that violence would not be the best way to achieve the independence of Ireland. He felt that passive resistance was the safer and more certain way of defeating the British. He initially supported Parnell's political views but then decided that Parnell's political outlook was not what he thought was best for Ireland. Griffith visited South Africa from 1896 to 1898. In South Africa, Griffith supported the Boers in their campaign against British expansionism and was a supporter of Paul Kruger.

In 1899, on returning to Dublin, Griffith co-founded the weekly United Irishman newspaper with his associate William Rooney, who died in 1901. On 24 November 1910, Griffith married Maud Sheehan, after a six-year engagement; they had a son and a daughter.

Griffith's fierce criticism of the Irish Parliamentary Party's alliance with the British Liberal Party was heavily influenced by the anti-Liberal rhetoric of Young Irelander John Mitchel. Griffith supported the Limerick boycott, advocating shunning Jewish-owned businesses in the city. Griffith also supported movements seeking national independence from the British Empire in Egypt and India, and wrote a highly-critical description of the British government action at Matabele. He opposed the policies of James Larkin, but worked with James Connolly, who was a nationalist as well as a socialist.