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The Workers' Party (Irish: Páirtí na nOibrithe) is an Irish republican, Marxist–Leninist communist party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The party formerly asserted a claim of direct descent from the original Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It took its current form in 1970 following a division within the party, in which the majority faction followed the leadership in a Marxist direction. It was known as "Sinn Féin (Gardiner Place)" or "Official Sinn Féin", to distinguish it from the minority faction of "Sinn Féin (Kevin Street)" or "Provisional Sinn Féin". The party name of Official Sinn Féin was changed to Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party in 1977 and then to the Workers' Party in 1982. In that time, Provisional Sinn Féin came to be known simply as Sinn Féin. Both groups were tied to corresponding paramilitary groups, with Official Sinn Féin tied to the Official Irish Republican Army. By the late 1980s, the party had broken through electorally in the Republic of Ireland and at its peak following the 1989 Irish general election and 1991 Irish local elections it had 7 Teachta Dála in Dáil Eireann and 24 county councillors. However, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, almost all the party's elected membership broke away and formed Democratic Left in 1992. Since 1992 the party has existed as a microparty. A 2021 splint in the party left the group without any elected representatives anywhere on the island of Ireland. Name In 1971, it registered to contest Dáil and local elections in the Republic of Ireland under the name Sinn Féin. From the early to mid-1970s, it was known as Official Sinn Féin or Sinn Féin (Gardiner Place) to distinguish it from the rival offshoot Provisional Sinn Féin, or Sinn Féin (Kevin Street). Gardiner Place had symbolic power as the headquarters of Sinn Féin for decades before the 1970 split. At its Ardfheis in January 1977, Official Sinn Féin renamed itself Sinn Féin – The Workers' Party. Its first seats in Dáil Éireann were won under this new name. A motion at the 1979 Ardfheis to remove the Sinn Féin prefix from the party name was narrowly defeated. This change would come about three years later. In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin was organised under the name Republican Clubs to avoid a ban on Sinn Féin candidates (introduced in 1964 under Northern Ireland's Emergency Powers Act). The Officials continued to use this name after 1970, and later used the name Workers' Party Republican Clubs. In 1982, both the northern and southern sections of the party became The Workers' Party. The Workers' Party is sometimes referred to as the "Sticks" or "Stickies" because in the 1970s it used adhesive stickers for the Easter Lily emblem in its 1916 commemorations, whereas Provisional Sinn Féin used a pin for theirs. History Origins The modern origins of the party date from the early 1960s. After the failure of the then IRA's 1956–1962 border campaign, the republican movement, with a new military and political leadership, undertook a complete reappraisal of its raison d'être. Through the 1960s, some leading figures in the movement, such as Cathal Goulding, Seán Garland, Billy McMillen, Tomás Mac Giolla, moved steadily to the left, even to Marxism, as a result of their own reading and thinking and contacts with the Irish and international left. This angered more traditional republicans, who wanted to stick to the national question and armed struggle. Also involved in this debate was the Connolly Association. This group's analysis saw the primary obstacle to Irish unity as the continuing division between the Protestant and Catholic working classes. This it attributed to the "divide and rule" policies of capitalism, whose interests were served by the working classes remaining divided. Military activity was seen as counterproductive, because its effect was to further entrench sectarian divisions. The left-wing faction believed the working classes could be united in class struggle to overthrow their common rulers, with a 32-county socialist republic being the inevitable outcome. However, this Marxist outlook became unpopular with many of the more traditionalist republicans, and the party/army leadership was criticised for failing to defend northern Catholic enclaves from loyalist attacks (these debates took place against the background of the violent beginning of what would be termed the Troubles). A growing minority within the rank-and-file wanted to maintain traditional militarist policies aimed at ending British rule in Northern Ireland. An equally contentious issue involved whether to or not to continue with the policy of abstentionism, that is, the refusal of elected representatives to take their seats in British or Irish legislatures. A majority of the leadership favoured abandoning this policy. A group consisting of Seán Mac Stiofáin, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Seamus Twomey, and others, established themselves as a "Provisional Army Council" in 1969 in anticipation of a contentious 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (delegate conference). At the Ard Fheis, the leadership of Sinn Féin failed to attain the required two-thirds majority to change the party's position on abstentionism. The debate was charged with allegations of vote-rigging and expulsions. When the Ard Fheis went on to pass a vote of confidence in the official Army Council (which had already approved an end to the abstentionist policy), Ruairí Ó Brádaigh led the minority in a walk-out, and went to a prearranged meeting in Parnell Square where they announced the establishment of a "caretaker" executive of Sinn Féin. The dissident council became known as the "Provisional Army Council" and its party and military wing as Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA, while those remaining became known as Official Sinn Féin and the Official IRA. Official Sinn Féin, under the leadership of Tomás Mac Giolla, remained aligned to Goulding's Official IRA. A key factor in the split was the desire of those who became the Provisionals to make military action the key object of the organisation, rather than a simple rejection of leftism. The pre-split leadership, they stated, had attempted to replace the programme of Wolfe Tone and James Connolly with "the foreign socialism of Marx and Mao". If this had gone unchecked, their argument went, the "traditional" IRA would have been replaced by the “so-called National Liberation Movement, including Communist Party members In 1977, Official Sinn Féin ratified the party's new name: Sinn Féin The Workers' Party without dissension. According to Richard Sinnott, this "symbolism" was completed in April 1982 when the party became simply the Workers' Party. Political development OIRA ceasefire Although the Official IRA became drawn into the spiralling violence of the early period of conflict in Northern Ireland, it almost immediately reduced its military campaign against the United Kingdom's.... Discover the Brian Hanley Scott Millar popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Brian Hanley Scott Millar books.