United Irishman, The [ed. Arthur Griffith]

1899-1906; a nationalist weekly paper ed. by Arthur Griffith for its proprietor Willie Rooney; first issu, 4 March 1899; organ of Cumann na nGaedheal; publ. Griffith’s ‘Resurrection of Hugnary’, 1904; replaced by Sinn Féin; a paper of the same name, issued from 1948, was the organ of the IRA and Sin Féin, and later of Sinn Féin/The Workers’ Party.

in it Griffith propounded his separatist philosophy, leading to the establishment of the Sinn Féin party. Literary contributors included AE [George Russell], John Eglinton, Frank Fay, Douglas Hyde, Edward Martyn, Alice Milligan, P.S. O’Hegarty, Seamus O’Sullivan, Patrick Pearse, T.W. Rolleston, Jack B. Yeats, and W.B. Yeats. The name derived from a short-lived Young Ireland newspaper of which 16 numbers appeared between February and May of 1848 [and utimately from the United Irishman Society of 1792 and years following.] When Griffith’s paper ceased publication as a result of a libel action, he directly started another called Sinn Fein.

The paper carried ‘The Man of the Week’, featuring a different patriotic writer in each issue. See Brian McKenna, Irish Lit. (1974), p. 52.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 2, 333; 1899-1906, and named after Mitchel’s newspaper of 1847, replaced by Sinn Féin [354]; 370, err.; Griffith biog., 371]; a movement cultivated by an elite was having to contend with populist aspirations which, orchestrated by Arthur Griffith’s newspaper, The United Irishman, submitted art to political judgement [562]; writing in The United Irishman in 1902 Yeats said of Cathleen ni Houlihan, ‘My subject is Ireland and its struggle for independence. .. It is the perpetual struggle of the cause of Ireland and every other ideal cause against private hopes and dreams, against all that we mean when we say the world [sic]’ [597]; [Griffith, 824n]; [err., United Irish League 988n]; [applauds Gaelic League, 998]; parliamentary abstentionism and economic protectionism [1000]; [cultural organ of the revolutionary period, 1026].

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day Co. 1991), Vol. 3: ‘Did you read that skit in the United Irishman today about that Zulu chief that’s visiting England? (Ulysses, ‘Polyphemus’) [74]; [armed passive resistance recommended in, 503].

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