The years covered by this collection were ones of profound change for the Provisional movement, from the hunger strikes of 1981 through the turn to electoral politics, the long peace process, and Sinn Féin’s emergence as a major party on both sides of the border. As the movement grew and its concerns multiplied, so did its publications, and the magazines and newsletters gathered here show a republicanism that was no longer speaking with a single voice but through many.
At the centre stood IRIS, the movement’s serious political magazine, published from 1981 and appearing, on and off, until 2012; its run forms the spine of this section. Around it grew a range of more specialised titles: The Captive Voice, the magazine of republican prisoners written from inside the jails; A Woman’s Voice and Women in Struggle, produced by the movement’s women; the Irish-language Nuacht Feirste in Belfast; and the Ireland International News Briefing, which put the republican case to an audience abroad. Alongside these the local cumann newsletters of the 1970s carried on into the new decades, from Tallaght and Finglas to Derry, Newry, and West Belfast.
Spanning more than thirty years, the collection traces both the widening reach of republican publishing and the changing preoccupations of the movement behind it, from the prison protests of the early 1980s to the politics of the peace process and after. Together these magazines and newsletters offer a fuller picture of how Sinn Féin spoke to its members, its prisoners, its women, and the wider world across three decades of transformation.
1980
![]() The Phoenix (January 1980) | ![]() The Phoenix (16 March 1980) | ![]() The Phoenix (14 April 1980) |
![]() Éire Nua Bulletin (26 February 1980) |
1981
1982
![]() July 1982 | ![]() October 1982 | ![]() Dublin Republican (March/April 1982) (1) |
![]() Dublin Republican (September 1982) (1) | ![]() Waterside Sinn Féin Bulletin (13 March 1982) (3) | ![]() Creggan News (26 March 1982) (3) |
1983
1984
1985
![]() July 1985 (2) | ![]() Saoirse (Spring 1985) (2) | ![]() Saoirse (1985) (4) |
1986
Nuacht Feirste
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
![]() The Captive Voice (Summer 1996) | ![]() Winter 1996 (Vol 8, No 1) | ![]() Winter 1996 (Vol 8, No 3) |
![]() The Fenian (Sept 1996) | ![]() The Fenian (Dec 1996) | ![]() Cairde (December 1996) |
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
![]() Spark (Summer 2001) | ![]() Sinn Féin Bogside and Brandywell (2001) | ![]() Young Republican (Summer 2001) (1) |
![]() Sinn Féin Election Special (2001) |
2002
2003
2006
![]() Winter 2006 (2) |
2007
![]() Summer 2007 (2) |
2008
2009
2010
![]() Spring 2010 (2) |
2012
(1) Donated by @irish_republican_archive
(2) Donated by Txente Rekondo
(3) Donated by the J and L Sweeney Collection
(4) – Donated by Irish Election Literature
© Irish Republican Digital Archive. Historical documents are presented for educational and research purposes only. We do not endorse or promote any views expressed in the material. Some content may be politically or historically sensitive. [Read full disclaimer]
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