how do the political parties lay claim to the 1916 legacy?

Fianna Fáil

Fianna Fáil has always seen itself as a party that embodies the spirit of 1916. The party was founded in 1926, 10 years after the Rising, and went on to become the most powerful democratic movement in the history of independent Ireland. Fianna Fáil traces its roots to 1916 but its tradition was also influenced hugely by the 1918 election victory of Sinn Féin, the Civil War and the decision in 1926 to abandon abstentionism and the gun and participate fully in democratic politics.

Eamon de Valera, the founder and leader of Fianna Fáil for more than 30 years, took a prominent role in the Rising as the commandant at Boland's mill. That record helped him to become the dominant political figure in 20th-century Ireland. Seán Lemass, who succeeded de Valera as party leader and taoiseach, also took part in the Rising as did most of the founding fathers of Fianna Fáil, such as Seán MacEntee and Seán T O'Kelly.

When de Valera first put himself forward for election in east Clare in May 1917, he repeated his allegiance to the principles of the 1916 leaders: "To that government, when in visible shape, I offered my allegiance and to its spirit I owe my allegiance still." After his triumph in east Clare, de Valera refused to take his seat in the House of Commons and became the acknowledged leader of the broad national movement that developed in the wake of the Rising. He was president of the First Dáil, composed of the Sinn Féin TDs elected in 1918 on an abstentionist platform.

That movement fractured in December 1921 when Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty with the British government. The Treaty was repudiated by de Valera, mainly because of the Oath of Fidelity to the British Crown but it was endorsed by the electorate in June 1922. In the Civil War that followed the election, de Valera sided with the republicans who rejected the authority of the Free State.

After the defeat of the republican side in the Civil War, de Valera and his supporters contested the 1923 election under the banner of Sinn Féin. The party did not recognise the state and continued to adhere to an abstentionist policy. De Valera and most of the leading members of Sinn Féin grew increasingly frustrated with this policy, which kept them out of the political arena. When his attempt to change party policy failed in 1926, they left Sinn Féin to establish Fianna Fáil on the 10th anniversary of the Rising.

A year later Fianna Fáil entered the Dáil and, under protest, took the hated oath. The party was famously described by Seán Lemass at this time as "a slightly constitutional party". In 1932 Fianna Fáil was elected to power for the first time and ever since has been the biggest party in the State and the dominant party of government. De Valera proceeded to dismantle the Oath and other elements of the Treaty settlement he found objectionable. He was elected president of the Republic in 1959 and was succeeded as party leader in 1959 by Seán Lemass.

When he left Áras an Uachtaráin in 1973 after almost 60 years in public life, de Valera's first act was to travel to Boland's mill for a ceremony involving the survivors of 1916. It was a restatement of the Fianna Fáil claim to be the true inheritors of the Rising.