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| - Sinn Fein has been transformed from a terror-linked pariah during the violent campaign against British rule in Northern Ireland into a party with popular support hoping for a role in Ireland's next government. Here are five facts about the resurgent left-wing nationalist party: Sinn Fein, Irish for "We Ourselves", was a popular slogan used by Irish nationalists from the late 19th century as they fought to become independent from British rule. Most of the island of Ireland seceded from Britain in 1922 but six northern counties remained part of the United Kingdom. Sinn Fein's chief policy is to bring them into a united Ireland. The party was founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905 as an umbrella organisation for various Irish nationalist groups. Griffith was a writer, newspaper editor and politician who led the Irish delegation at the negotiations that produced the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, creating the Irish Free State, which would later become the Republic of Ireland. The party's popularity boomed around World War I when it fought British attempts to introduce conscription in Ireland but splits occurred over the 1921 treaty. Separatist republicans of the Sinn Fein movement, led by Eamon de Valera, opposed the terms of the treaty, leading to a brief civil war. Links between the separatist movement and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) strengthened during the conflict, and the paramilitary group took a firmer grip on the party when it became severely weakened after the pro-treaty side won the war. The party continued to be a support group for the IRA when it took up armed struggle against British troops serving in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, with Gerry Adams emerging as the party's leader during the early 1980s. Sinn Fein, whose leaders were once banned from the airwaves in Britain, helped kickstart the peace process that would end the decades of violence when it touted a political route out of "The Troubles" in the late 1980s. The party was allowed into peace talks after the IRA announced a ceasefire in 1994 and it gained an increasingly mainstream profile during the intense negotiations that finally led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The party, now led by Mary Lou McDonald, won the popular vote in an Irish general election for the first time on Saturday with a 24.5 percent share of first-preference votes. After final results were declared Tuesday, it became Ireland's second-largest parliamentary party with 37 seats, just one behind centre-right party Fianna Fail. Its left-wing policies aimed at tackling a housing and health crisis appear to have found appeal among younger voters and broke the duopoly of the centre-right parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail. Although it did not field enough candidates to win an outright majority, it could yet enter the republic's government for the first time in a coalition deal. bur-jwp/rjm/phz/jxb/ecl/jah
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