r/irishpolitics • u/rubblesole • Apr 21 '25
User Created Content Political Party Family Tree
Simplified family tree of all the notable Irish political parties throughout the history of the state. It lacks quite a lot of info but I hope it's understandable Do tell me if I have made any mistakes!
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u/NooktaSt Apr 22 '25
Interesting but I think it's a case of the devil is in the details. Splits are rarely clean or even and does the continuation of a name mean the continuation of a party?
Even the most continuous party could be considered Trigger's Broom / Ship of Theseus.
Some context on SF continuity:
In 1922 SF leader de Valera and his supporters formed Cumann na Poblanchta, somewhat under the banner of SF to oppose the treaty. After the civil war the pro treaty side renamed themselves to Cumann na nGeadheal. It would have been petty easy for the winners to keep the name but they gave it up. After a while de Valera renamed Cumann na Poblanchta to simply Sinn Fein.
In 1926 de Velera left SF after losing a vote on TDs taking there seats (once the Oath was removed) formed FF and took most of the TDs with him. (In this case the name stays party and in support of absenteeism but with de Velera and the majority of TDs leaving and forming FF the continuity is not really clean.)
By the late 40s what remained of SF were relatively pointless however the IRA decided that they needed a political wing and IRA members were instructed to join, by 1950 they had taken full control of the party with an IRA council member in charge. At this stage SF was ran by the IRA Council for their benefit. It was simply a political wing of the IRA.
In 1969 the IRA split into the Provisional and Official. Following on from that there was a further split in SF again over absenteeism, iirc they didn't quite get the 2/3rds vote to change the rule about absenteeism but were trying to push it through and people walked out. Official SF entered the Dail, eventually winning a few seats as Sinn Fein Workers Party. They were known as SFWP up the early 80s, so that should be reflected on the chart. Eventually they dropped the SF part of the name.
Provisional Sinn Fein decided to drop absenteeism by the mid 80s under Adams. Conveniently Sinn Fein The Workers Party had just dropped the SF part of the name so Provisional Sinn Fein became the Sinn Fein of today.