Arthur Griffith. Owen McGee

difficulties in sustaining Sinn Féin. Griffith appealed in vain to Sweetman to reconsider his decision to resign,64 while by the summer of 1912 it would become necessary for Griffith to consider mortgaging his newly acquired home solely to keep the paper alive.65 Nevertheless, he stuck to his guns in promoting his Irish nationalist ideas.

      While a party still nominally met under Griffith’s presidency, the new Sinn Féin Party headquarters now served as little more than a lecture theatre for a rapidly declining party membership. Reports of branches dissolving were received regularly, although those who remained took some interest in Griffith’s exploration of the theoretical possibilities of an Irish meat trade opening with the European continent, amongst other ideas.66 However, even Griffith’s principal supporters at this time, M.J. O’Rahilly (managing director of An Claidheamh Solus) and Eamon Ceannt (a fellow senior Gaelic Leaguer), did not actually make Sinn Féin their vehicle for holding public demonstrations. Instead, they chose to work with Sean MacDermott’s new United National Societies Committee.67 Although it did not involve an actual political opposition, this reflected a seemingly deliberate IRB boycott of the Sinn Féin organisation at this time. Around the same time as Sweetman decided to resign, the Dublin IRB distanced itself from Sinn Féin while the Cork IRB leader Sean O’Hegarty officially resigned as the local leader of Sinn Féin.68 It is likely that IRB as much as Irish Party activists did not appreciate the arguments that Griffith had made recently regarding the role of the British Foreign Office in Irish history.