FROM IRISH REPUBLICAN NEWS December 12 2008 and still relevant. Part 1
Donal Kennedy looks at the electoral facts surrounding Sinn Fein’s historic victory at the 1918 General Election, 90 years ago this week, and takes issue with those academics, journalists and politicians who seek to undermine its democratic legitimacy.
On 28 January 1919, exactly one week after the first meeting of Dail Eireann, a young man remarked in his diary-
“Just one thing occurs to me to mention before I put this diary away; an example of how
our claim for self-determination of small nations- championed by Britain in the name of
the Czechs – is misrepresented by politicians and newspapers there. In quoting statistics for last year’s general election they give the total votes cast for and against Sinn
Fein only in contested elections, completely ignoring the 25 constituencies where Sinn Fein candidates were returned unopposed, thus presenting an entirely misleading picture.”
Ninety years on Irish politicians, newspapers and academics have adopted the disingenuous begrudgery of the British commentators remarked upon by Edward MacLysaght, who lived from 1887 to 1976, whose character will be remembered by some readers.
Professor Richard English of Queen’s University, Belfast, in his study of Ernie O’Malley,
remarks that Sinn Fein polled only 47% of the votes cast. Ex-Taoiseach and Chancellor
of the National University of Ireland, I’m advised, has also made the same claim in The Irish Times.
The party Fitzgerald led, and its predecessor, Cumann na Gael, would have been lucky
to get 47% of votes cast, ever! For they never won the hearts of the Irish people. Abstentionist Republicans allowed Cumann na Gael to rule from 1923 to 1932. Fitzgerald could not have formed his first government if an IRA prisoner and an INLA prisoner hadn’t been elected to the Dail in 1981.
One Stephen King, writing in The Irish Examiner (3 December 2008) acknowledges the
25 uncontested seats, but would have us believe that the Irish Parliamentary Party, some of whose members, and tens of thousands of whose supporters had faced German artillery for four years in France, was intimidated by a virtually unarmed movement, many of whose candidates and key workers, including Desmond Fitzgerald, father of Garret, had meekly allowed themselves to be arrested , deported and jailed by the British.
The fact is that uncontested constituencies were quite common in Ireland and Britain in 1918,as they were prior to 1918.
TO BE CONTINUED SOON
Paragraph 4 Sentence 2 should READ –
“Ex -Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald and Chancellor of the National University of Ireland, Garret Fitzgerald, I’m advised, has made the same claim in the Irish Times.