Workers' Party (Ireland)

The Workers' Party
Páirtí na nOibrithe
PresidentMichael McCorry[1] (disputed)
Founded17 January 1970[a]
Split fromSinn Féin
Headquarters8 Cabra Road,
Dublin 7, Ireland
Youth wingWorkers' Party Youth[2]
IdeologyCommunism
Marxism–Leninism
Irish republicanism
Political positionFar-left
European affiliationINITIATIVE (2013–2023)
International affiliationIMCWP
WAP(disputed)
ECA(disputed)
ColoursRed
Website
workersparty.ie Edit this at Wikidata

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.[3][4]

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 Sinn Féin, 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". It changed its name from Sinn Féin 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 it elected 7 TDs at the 1989 general election and 21 councillors at the 1991 local elections. However, following the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, almost all the party's elected members broke away and formed Democratic Left in 1992. Since 1992 the party has existed as a microparty. A 2021 split in the party left the party's status disputed.

  1. ^ "Governing Structure of the Workers' Party".
  2. ^ "WFDY – CENA Member Organizations". World Federation of Democratic Youth. June 2015. Archived from the original on 20 August 2016. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  3. ^ "Register of Political Parties in Ireland". Houses of the Oireachtas. 23 November 2010. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 2 May 2010.
  4. ^ "NI Register of Political Parties". Electoral Commission. Archived from the original on 17 September 2020. Retrieved 17 February 2020.


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