Arthur Griffith

A follower of Parnell who became disillusioned with parliamentary politics after Parnell's death, Arthur Griffith went to South Africa, and returned to Ireland to found the radical political party Sinn Fein around 1903 or 1904. Rumoured to have beaten a right-wing French newspaper publisher with a horse whip over slights/affronts to Maud Gonne. Died at 50, apparently of stress-related ill health, in 1922 only 10 days before Michael Collins was killed, after seeing Sinn Fein's reach the pinnacle of political power in post World War I southern (Roman Catholic Nationalist) Ireland.