Irish Republican Legitimatism

A concept within Irish Republicanism, Irish republican legitimatism denies the legitimacy of the political entities of Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and posits that the pre-partition Irish Republic continues to exist. The concept informs aspects of, but is not synonymous with, abstentionism.

The only political party to subscribe to this principle is Republican Sinn Féin which, running on an abstentionist platform, received 2,522 first preference votes, or 0.38 per cent of the valid poll in the 2007 Northern Ireland Assembly elections and 2,403 first preference votes, 0.13 per cent of the valid poll, in the 2004 Republic of Ireland local elections. The Continuity Irish Republican Army, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Éireann also subscribe to republican legitimatism.

Read more about Irish Republican Legitimatism:  Historical Development, 1938 – Second Dáil To Army Council, 1969 – Official/Provisional Split, 1986 – Provisional/Continuity Split

Famous quotes containing the words irish and/or republican:

    “Of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “No one has ever seen a Republican mass meeting that was devoid of the perception of the ludicrous.”
    —Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)