48 Facts About Arthur Griffith

Arthur Joseph Griffith was an Irish writer, newspaper editor and politician who founded the political party Sinn Fein.

Arthur Griffith led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that produced the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, and served as the president of Dail Eireann from January 1922 until his death later in August.

Arthur Griffith took over as president of Sinn Fein in 1911, but at that time the organisation was still small.

Arthur Griffith was arrested following the Easter Rising of 1916, despite not having taken any part in it.

At the party's in October 1917, Sinn Fein became an unambiguously republican party, and Arthur Griffith resigned the presidency in favour of the 1916 leader Eamon de Valera, becoming vice-president instead.

Arthur 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 Fein won a huge electoral victory over the Irish Parliamentary Party and, refusing to take their seats at Westminster, set up their own constituent assembly, Dail Eireann.

Arthur 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.

Arthur Griffith's great-great-grandfather, William Griffith of Drws-y-coed Uchaf, Rhyd-ddu, Caernarvonshire, was a farmer and supporter of the Moravian Church cause.

Arthur Griffith worked for a time as a printer before joining the Gaelic League, which was aimed at promoting the restoration of the Irish language.

The young Arthur Griffith was a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Arthur Griffith initially supported Parnell's political views, but then decided that Parnell's political outlook was not what he thought was best for Ireland.

In South Africa, Arthur Griffith supported the Boers in their campaign against British expansionism and was a supporter of Paul Kruger.

In 1899, on returning to Dublin, Arthur Griffith co-founded the weekly United Irishman newspaper with his associate William Rooney, who died in 1901.

On 24 November 1910, Arthur Griffith married his fiancee, Maud Sheehan, after a six-year engagement; they had a son and a daughter.

Arthur Griffith supported the Limerick boycott, advocating shunning Jewish-owned businesses in the city.

Arthur Griffith 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.

In 1906, after the United Irishman journal collapsed because of a libel suit, Arthur Griffith re-founded it under the title Sinn Fein.

The fundamental principles of abstentionism on which Sinn Fein was founded were outlined in an article published in 1904, by Arthur Griffith called The Resurrection of Hungary, in which, noting how in 1867 Hungary went from being part of the Austrian Empire to a separate co-equal kingdom in Austria-Hungary.

Arthur Griffith sought to combine elements of Parnellism with the traditional separatist approach; he saw himself not as a leader but as providing a strategy which a new leader might follow.

Arthur Griffith was a staunch economic nationalist, he argued that nationalism was central to the fostering of economic growth.

Arthur Griffith often cited the works of German economist Friedrich List.

The IRB members argued that the aim of dual monarchism should be replaced by republicanism and that Arthur Griffith was excessively inclined to compromise with conservative elements.

At that Ard Fheis, Arthur Griffith resigned the presidency of Sinn Fein in favour of de Valera; he and Fr.

In May 1918, along with Eamon de Valera and 72 other Sinn Feiners, Arthur Griffith was arrested on the pretext of involvement in the fictitious German Plot.

Arthur Griffith spent ten months interned in HM Prison Gloucester, being released on 6 March 1919.

Arthur Griffith was put forward as a Sinn Fein candidate for the East Cavan by-election on 20 June 1918.

Arthur Griffith was returned for both East Cavan and Tyrone North West.

Arthur Griffith was arrested at his house at 3am, on 26 November 1920, and later jailed, Fr.

Arthur Griffith was to spend the next seven months in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison.

Arthur Griffith was released on 30 June 1921 as peace moves got under way.

On 26 August 1921, Arthur Griffith was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the new Irish cabinet.

Arthur Griffith was the member of the treaty delegation most supportive of its eventual outcome, a compromise based on dominion status, rather than a republic.

Arthur Griffith then succeeded de Valera as President of Dail Eireann.

Arthur Griffith was to a great extent merely a figurehead as President of the Second Dail.

Arthur Griffith was confined to a room in St Vincent's by his doctors, who had observed signs of what they thought might be a subarachnoid hemorrhage, but it was difficult to keep him quiet, and he resumed his daily work in the government building.

Arthur Griffith had been about to leave for his office shortly before 10 am on 12 August 1922, when he paused to retie his shoelace and fell down unconscious.

Arthur Griffith regained consciousness, but collapsed again with blood coming from his mouth.

Fr John Lee of the Marist Fathers administered extreme unction, and Arthur Griffith expired as the priest recited the concluding prayer.

Arthur Griffith died at the age of 51, ten days before Michael Collins' death in an ambush in County Cork.

Arthur Griffith was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery four days later.

The historian Diarmaid Ferriter considers that, though he had founded Sinn Fein, Arthur Griffith was 'quickly airbrushed' from Irish history.

Arthur Griffith's widow had to beg his former colleagues for a pension, saying that he 'had made them all'.

Arthur Griffith considered that his grave plot was too modest and threatened to exhume his body.

Arthur Griffith was apparently unaware that the Jews of Limerick had little or no involvement in money-lending or similar practices.

From 1904 until his death, Arthur Griffith wrote virtually nothing which could be construed as antisemitic.

Historian Colum Kenny writes that Arthur Griffith's "thinking developed" which is shown by a "radical shift" in his journalism.

Arthur Griffith was a close friend of Jewish solicitor Michael Noyk, who defended many IRA members in courts martial during the Irish War of Independence, and served as an official in the First Dail Department of Finance and as a Dail Court judge during the war.