Sinn Féin (/ˌʃɪnˈfɛɪn/ shin-FAYN; ) is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970 after a split within the party. Sinn Féin is led by Gerry Adams, and has elected representatives in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The party in its present form has historically been associated with the Provisional IRA.
Sinn Féin is currently the second-largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly, where it has four ministerial posts in the power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive, and the fourth-largest party in the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Republic of Ireland. In the 2009 European Parliament election the party's candidate in Northern Ireland, Bairbre de Brún, topped the poll, a first for Sinn Féin in any Northern Ireland-wide election. Sinn Féin also received a plurality of Northern Ireland votes in the 2010 United Kingdom general election, although the Democratic Unionist Party won more seats. It is the third largest political party across the island of Ireland with a popular vote of 398,915, taking both the Irish general election, 2011 in the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Ireland Assembly election, 2011 in Northern Ireland into account.
Read more about Sinn Féin: Links With The IRA, Organisational Structure, Leadership History, Policy and Ideology, Northern Ireland Executive Ministers (from 2011)