Irish nationalist leader and statesman, President of the Irish Free State (1922) government. In 1905 he founded and became President of Sinn Fein. Griffith was among those who established the unofficial Irish Parliament, the Dáil Éireann, in 1919, becoming Vice-President of the republic it declared in the same year. With Michael Collins, he negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921) that established the Irish Free State, becoming its head of government in 1922. He died in office several months later.