The Irish general election is that part of the 1918 United Kingdom general election which takes place in Ireland. The election is now seen as a key moment in modern Irish history because it sees the overwhelming defeat of the moderate nationalistIrish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which had dominated the Irish political landscape since the 1880s, and a landslide victory for the radical Sinn Féin party. The party had never stood in a general election but had won six seats in by-elections in 1917–1918. Sinn Féin vows in its manifesto to establish an independent Irish Republic. In Ulster, however, the Unionist Party is the most successful party.
The election is held in the aftermath of World War I, the Easter Rising and the Conscription Crisis. It is the first general election to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918. It is thus the first election in which women over the age of 30, and all men over the age of 21, can vote. Previously, all women and most working-class men had been excluded from voting.
In the aftermath of the elections, Sinn Féin’s elected members refuse to attend the British Parliament in Westminster. Instead, they form a parliament in Dublin, the First Dáil Éireann, which declares Irish independence as a republic. The Irish War of Independence is conducted under this revolutionary government which seeks international recognition and sets about the process of state-building.
Childers is educated at Gresham’s School, Holt, and the University of Cambridge, hence his striking British upper-class accent. On November 24, 1922, when he is sixteen, his father, Robert Erskine Childers, is executed by the new Irish Free State on politically inspired charges of gun-possession. The pistol he had been found with had been given to him by Michael Collins. Before his execution, in a spirit of reconciliation, the elder Childers obtains a promise from his son to seek out and shake the hand of every man who had signed his death warrant.
Following his father’s funeral, he returns to Gresham’s, then two years later he goes on to Trinity College, Cambridge. He returns to Ireland in 1932 and becomes advertising manager of The Irish Press, the newly founded newspaper owned by the family of Éamon de Valera.
Childers is nominated as the presidential candidate of Fianna Fáil at the behest of de Valera, who pressures Jack Lynch in the selection of the presidential candidate. He is a controversial nominee, owing not only to his British birth and upbringing but to his Protestantism. However, on the campaign trail his personal popularity proved enormous, and in a political upset at the 1973 Irish presidential election, he is elected the fourth President of Ireland on May 30, 1973, defeating Tom O’Higgins by 635,867 (52%) votes to 578,771 (48%). He becomes the second Protestant to hold the office, the first being Douglas Hyde (1938–1945).
Prevented from transforming the presidency as he desires, Childers instead throws his energy into a busy schedule of official visits and speeches, which is physically taxing.
The British monarch and the Republic of Ireland‘s head of state chat and pose together at Hillsborough Castle, outside Belfast, for an occasion that would have provoked hostility within Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority just a few years earlier. But their trouble-free meeting becomes inevitable once Ireland dropped its territorial claim to Northern Ireland as part of the landmark Good Friday Agreement peace accord of 1998. The visit also fuels speculation the queen could soon make her first official visit to the neighboring Republic of Ireland, where the Irish Republican Army assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten, the uncle of her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
No British monarch has visited the territory of the modern-day Republic of Ireland since George V visited Dublin in 1911, a decade before the island’s partition into a mostly Protestant north that remains within the United Kingdom, and a predominantly Catholic rest of Ireland that gradually gains full independence from Britain.
Camera crews are allowed to film the moment, but not record the sound, when McAleese shakes the queen’s hand at the start of a 20-minute meeting, their fourth since 1998. Previous meetings occurred at Buckingham Palace and on a World War I battlefield site. McAleese later calls it “a very special day for Anglo-Irish relationships” that brings forward the day when the queen will visit the Irish Republic.
McAleese, a Belfast-born Catholic, had made scores of visits to Northern Ireland since being elected to the Irish Republic’s largely symbolic presidency in 1997. As part of her presidential theme of “building bridges,” she regularly invites Protestant groups to her official Dublin mansion and has built impressive diplomatic contacts with northern Protestants.
Before McAleese’s arrival, visits north by an Irish president were rare events that drew public protests from Protestants, who demanded that Ireland remove its territorial claim from its 1937 constitution. The republic’s voters overwhelmingly supported this in a May 1998 referendum, an action completed in December 1999.
The queen has avoided traveling to the Irish Republic, in part, because of security fears following the IRA assassination of Mountbatten in August 1979. He, his daughter-in-law and two teenage boys are killed when the IRA blows up his private boat near his castle in County Sligo. However, Prince Philip and their son, Prince Charles, make several visits to the Irish Republic in the decade following the IRA’s 1994 cease-fire.
The Anglo-Irish Treaty, commonly known as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, is signed in the early morning hours of December 6, 1921 by representatives of the Irish government appointed by PresidentÉamon de Valera and those negotiating for the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, ending the Irish War of Independence against Great Britain. It is then, and remains, one of the most debated moments in Irish history.
The Treaty provides for the establishment of the Irish Free State within a year as a self-governing dominion within the “community of nations known as the British Empire“, a status “the same as that of the Dominion of Canada.” It also provides Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State, which it exercises.
The agreement is signed in London by representatives of the British government, which includes Winston Churchill and Prime MinisterDavid Lloyd George, who are old masters at the game of politics, and by representatives of the Irish Republic including Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, who have nowhere near the political acumen of the British delegation. De Valera, a shrewd, experienced politician, may have been the only man in all of Ireland who might have matched them, but he refuses to join the negotiations.
The Irish representatives have plenipotentiary status acting on behalf of the Irish Republic, though the British government declines to recognise that status. As required by its terms, the Treaty is approved by “a meeting” of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and separately by the British Parliament. In reality, Dáil Éireann, the legislative assembly for the de facto Irish Republic, first debates then approves the treaty. Members then proceed with the “meeting.” Though the Treaty is narrowly approved, the split leads to the Irish Civil War, which is won by the pro-treaty side.
The Irish Free State as contemplated by the Treaty comes into existence when its constitution becomes law on December 6, 1922 by a royal proclamation.
(Pictured: Michael Collins signs the Anglo-Irish Treaty on December 6, 1921)
Anthony Malone, Irish lawyer and politician, is born on December 5, 1700, the eldest son of Richard Malone of Baronston, County Westmeath, and Marcella, daughter of Redmond Molady. Edmund Malone is his nephew, and a younger brother, Richard Malone (1706–1759), is MP for Fore from 1741.
Malone makes a successful career as a lawyer. From 1727 to 1760, and again from 1769 to 1776, he represents the county of Westmeath, and from 1761 to 1768 the borough of Castlemartyr, in the Irish parliament. In 1740 he is appointed Serjeant-at-law, but is dismissed from office in 1754 for opposing the claim of the crown to dispose of unappropriated revenue. In 1757 he is made Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland, but his attitude in council in regard to the Money Bill of 1761 leads to his again being removed from office. His treatment is regarded as too severe by William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, and Malone, who draws a distinction between advice offered in council and his conduct in parliament, introduces the measure as chairman of the committee of supply. He is shortly afterwards granted a patent of precedence at the bar, but is charged with having sold his political principles for money.
Malone supports John Monck Mason‘s bill for enabling Roman Catholics to invest money in mortgages on land. In 1762 he is appointed, with Sir Richard Aston, to try the Whiteboys of Munster. They agree in ascribing the rural violence to local and individual grievances.
Malone dies at the age of 75 on May 8, 1776. At one time, a marble bust of him adorned Baronston House. By his will, made in July 1774, he leaves all his estates in the counties of Westmeath, Roscommon, Longford, Cavan, and Dublin to his nephew, Richard Malone, 1st Baron Sunderlin as he became, eldest son of his brother Edmund. On his death in 1816 the right of succession is disputed.
Born in what is now Northern Ireland in 1831 to Scotch-Irish parents, Fair immigrates with his family to the United States when he is a boy and grows up on a farm in Illinois. Following the 1849 California Gold Rush, he travels to California. He earns a reputation for understanding ore bodies, inspiring his eventual employment as superintendent of various mines.
The 1859 discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada provides Fair with new opportunities. In 1865, he becomes superintendent of the prestigious Ophir Mine. Two years later, the Hale and Norcross Mine in Virginia City hire him as assistant superintendent, but the owners dismiss him within a year for unclear reasons.
While at the Hale and Norcross, Fair meets John William Mackay, whose success at the Kentuck Mine made him a millionaire. The two Irish immigrants recognize common interests and form an alliance. Mackay gives Fair the position of superintendent of the Rising Star Mine in Idaho, a property he had recently acquired. The venture proves unsuccessful, but it solidifies a working relationship between the two.
Fair works quietly with Mackay and investors James C. Flood and William S. O’Brien to obtain control of the Hale and Norcross Mine. Fair turns it to profit with better management. He and Mackay combine their expertise to acquire and explore other claims. In 1873, largely through Fair’s persistent search in the Consolidated California and Virginia Mine, the partnership discovers the famed Big Bonanza, one of the richest ore bodies in history. Fair and the others become extremely wealthy. He uses his assets to defeat the incumbent William Sharon for a seat in the United States Senate, which he holds in an undistinguished way from 1881-1887 as a Democrat.
Fair develops real estate in San Francisco and acquires mining property outside Nevada. Theresa Fair, his wife, is respected in Virginia City for donations to causes including those of the Catholic Church and the Daughters of Charity. When she divorces her husband in 1883 for habitual adultery, national public opinion turns against the senator. During his bid for reelection, he finds little support. Even Mackay fails to come to his aid, and he easily loses his seat to William Morris Stewart in 1887. He then moves back to San Francisco.
Henry Flood, Anglo-Irishstatesman and founder of the Patriot movement that in 1782 wins legislative independence for Ireland, dies on December 2, 1791.
Flood enters the Irish Parliament in 1759 as member for Kilkenny County. Irish Protestants are becoming impatient with the British Parliament’s right to legislate for Ireland over the wishes of the Irish Parliament. Moreover, the British government controls a majority in Ireland’s House of Commons through the distribution of crown patronage by the owners of parliamentary boroughs.
Flood’s outstanding oratorical powers soon enable him to create a small but effective opposition inside the Irish Parliament that agitates for political reforms. They demand provisions for new Irish parliamentary elections every eight years, instead of merely at the start of a new British king’s reign. Their long-range goal is legislative independence. In 1768 his Patriots engineer passage of a bill limiting the duration of Parliament to eight years, and in 1769 and 1771 they defeat measures to grant funds for the British administration in Ireland.
Although Flood had become the first independent Irish statesman, he sacrifices this position in 1775 by accepting the office of vice treasurer under the British viceroy, Lord Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt. Henry Grattan, an even greater orator than Flood and who describes Flood as a man “with a metaphor in his mouth and a bribe in his pocket,” replaces him as leader of the Patriots.
Flood, however, leaves the Patriot cause at the wrong time. The movement grows rapidly as more and more Irish people are influenced by the North American colonists who are rebelling against the British in the American Revolution. In 1779 he rejoins his old party, and two years later he is officially dismissed from his government post. Although he has lost his following, he helps Grattan force the British government to renounce its restrictions on Irish trade (1779) and grant legislative independence to Ireland (1782).
Flood then decides to challenge Grattan’s leadership. Charging that Grattan has not gone far enough in his reforms, he obtains passage of a measure requiring the British Parliament to renounce all claims to control of Irish legislation. Nevertheless, his newly acquired popularity is destroyed upon the defeat of his attempt to reform the Irish Parliament in 1784.
Flood is a member of both the British and Irish parliaments from 1783 until he loses his seat in both parliaments in 1790, although in England he fails to achieve the kind of political successes that characterize his Irish parliamentary career.
Following the loss of his seats in parliament, Flood retires to Farmley, his residence in County Kilkenny, where he remains until his death on December 2, 1791. He and his wife Lady Frances Beresford, daughter of Marcus Beresford, 1st Earl of Tyrone, who survives until 1815, have no children, and his property passes to a cousin, John Flood. A large bequest to Trinity College Dublin is declared invalid.
(Pictured: Portrait of Henry Flood (1732 – 1791) by Bartholomew Stoker (1763-1788). John Comerford later makes a sketch of the portrait, from which James Heath makes an engraving.)
Hayes is first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Sinn Féin TD for the National University of Ireland constituency at the 1921 Irish elections. At the 1922 general election he is elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD. He serves as Minister for Education from January to September 1922, as part of the Dail Aireacht ministry as opposed to the Provisional Government. He has special responsibility for secondary education. He is also acting Minister for Foreign Affairs from August to September 1922. He supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty during the crucial debates in 1922. That same year he is elected Ceann Comhairle of the First Dáil of the Irish Free State. He holds that post for ten years until 1932.
Hayes loses his Dáil seat at the 1933 general election but is elected to Seanad Éireann in 1938 for Fine Gael. He remains a Senator until 1965, acting as leader of government and opposition there.
Hayes becomes Professor of Irish at University College Dublin in 1951.
Michael Hayes dies at the age of 86 on July 11, 1976, in Dublin.
Brakey Orange Hall had been destroyed in an arson attack on July 13, 2000, but had since been rebuilt and reopened in 2004. Further extensions and improvements have been made since, with the latest recently completed in time for the occasion.
Approximately 50 local people, many of the men in their orange lapels and other regalia, pack the little hall to honour their guest. Placing the visit in a wider context, McAleese says the “journey of peace-building and peace-making” since the signing of the Belfast Agreement ten years earlier must continue, and calls for a new culture of tolerance and acceptance in both parts of Ireland.
McAleese is welcomed by Cavan County Grand Master Henry Latimer, who praises the financial support for Orange halls in Border counties provided by the Government. He outlines to the President and her husband, Dr. Martin McAleese, the close bond between local communities and Orange halls and the facilities provided for meetings, classes and social events. “Given the widespread nature of such activity, it demonstrates why when halls are damaged, attacked, destroyed or [placed] beyond use for periods of time, the community activity of its related hinterland suffers and is curtailed,” he adds.
McAleese hails the occasion as an example of fresh understanding in relationships between different traditions. “We have taken the first important steps towards ending the bitter culture of ‘either-or,’ of them versus us,” she says. She calls on Irish people everywhere “to build a new culture . . . each accepting that there are different perspectives and practices.”
McAleese praises Latimer as a good Cavan man, a good Irishman and a good Orangeman. The burning of Orange halls, she says, are “intemperate acts of vandalism” which are “a throw-back to another time.”
Appealing for an end to attacks on Orange halls and GAA clubs by arsonists McAleese adds, “I invite them all to stop and think how wonderfully transformed all our lives would be if we were all made as welcome in each other’s homes as I have been made welcome here.”
McAleese receives a bouquet of flowers and a piece of Cavan crystal to mark her visit. She later attends other engagements throughout Cavan.
(From: “President makes first official visit by Irish head of state to an Orange hall” by Dan Keenan, The Irish Times, November 28, 2008)
The Representation of the People Act 1918, passed on February 6, 1918, extends the franchise in parliamentary elections, also known as the right to vote, to women aged 30 and over who reside in the constituency or occupied land or premises with a rateable value above £5, or whose husbands do.
In March 1918, the Liberal Party MP for Keighley dies, causing a by-election on April 26. There is doubt as to whether women are eligible to stand for parliament. Nina Boyle makes known her intention to stand as a candidate for the Women’s Freedom League at Keighley and, if refused, to take the matter to the courts for a definitive ruling. After some consideration, the returning officer states that he is prepared to accept her nomination, thus establishing a precedent for women candidates. However, he rules her nomination papers invalid on other grounds: one of the signatories to her nomination is not on the electoral roll and another lives outside the constituency. The Lords of Appeal in Ordinary are asked to consider the matter and conclude that the Great Reform Act 1832 had specifically banned women from standing as parliamentary candidates and the Representation of the People Act had not changed that.
Parliament hurriedly passes the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act in time to enable women to stand in the general election of December 1918. The act consists of only 27 operative words: “A woman shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected to or sitting or voting as a Member of the Commons House of Parliament.”
The first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons is Nancy Astor on December 1, 1919. She is elected as a Coalition Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton on November 28, 1919, taking the seat her husband had vacated.
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