The evolution of Sinn Fein Author:Robert Mitchell Henry Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SINN FEIN Of the origin of this name as the title of a political party a pleasant tale is told. It is said that some people, convinced that (in the words of D... more »avis) " the freeman's friend is Self-Reliance," and wishing to make it the basis of a national movement, being anxious for a suitable Irish name for such an idea, applied to a famous Irish scholar to furnish it. He told them a story of a country servant in Munster sent with a horse to the fair. The horse was sold and the servant after some days appeared in his master's kitchen, worn out but happy, and seated himself on the floor. To the inquiries of some neighbors who happened to be there, as to where he had been and what he had done, he would give no answer but " Sinn fein sinn fein." The prodigal servant's witty reply eludes the translator. To his hearers it conveyed that family matters were matters for the family: but it was no mere evasion of a temporary or personal difficulty. It was the expression of a universal truth. Society is divided into groups, large or small, which have their own problems and their own interests. Their problems they can best solve themselves, and of their interests theyare themselves the best judges. The solutions and the judgments will not always commend themselves to outsiders; but though outsiders cannot be denied the right to hold and to express their opinions they have no rights of veto or of interference. This right of independence, however, is subject in practice to serious limitations, and the history of human society is largely the history of the reconciliation of the competing interests and claims of social groups, each claiming to be in the last resort rightfully independent. One of such groups is the nation, and it is generally recognized that nations as such have rights analogous ...« less