Workers' Party of Ireland - Name

Name

Official Sinn Féin was sometimes called Sinn Féin (Gardiner Place) in the early to mid 1970s, a reference to the location of its headquarters, to distinguish it from the rival offshoot of Sinn Féin, called Provisional Sinn Féin or Sinn Féin (Kevin Street) by the media in that period. For traditional republicans, the mention of the Gardiner Place headquarters carried symbolic power, because the Gardiner Place headquarters had been the headquarters of Sinn Féin for decades before the 1970 split. This sobriquet died out in the mid 1970s.

At the Ard Fheis in January 1977, the Officials renamed themselves Sinn Féin The Workers Party. Their first seats in Dáil Éireann were won under this new name. In 1979, a motion at the Ard Fheis to remove the Sinn Féin prefix from the party name was narrowly defeated. The change finally came about three years later in 1982.

In Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin was organised under the name Republican Clubs (a name that was used to escape a ban, introduced in 1964 under Northern Ireland's Emergency Powers Act), and the Officials continued to use this name after 1970. The party later used the name "The Workers Party Republican Clubs". In 1982, both the northern and southern sections of the party became simply "The Workers' Party". The Workers Party is sometimes referred to by other Republicans as the "Sticks" or "Stickies" because it uses adhesive stickers of the Easter Lily emblem for its 1916 commemorations whereas others, most notably (Provisional) Sinn Féin use a pin for theirs.