“It is rare for a country to take part in a general election and then ignore the parliament for which it was designed, but that is what happened in southern Ireland when Sinn Fein swept to victory in 1918 and formed the independent Dáil, boycotting Westminster…The Dáil declared the Republic, chose de Valera as its president, set up its own courts, raised taxes and spent money just as if it was the legal parliament of an independent state”
from THE MAKING OF MODERN BRITAIN by Andrew Marr.
The General Election of 1918 was held less than 5 weeks after the Armistice and the Victorious Allies professed to believe in the Self Determination of Nations. Every Constituency in Ireland’s Western Province, Connacht, all but one in its Southern Province, Munster, the vast majority in its Eastern Province, Leinster elected clean slates of Sinn Feiners. The Northern Province of Ulster elected 10 Sinn Feiners, 10 Unionists and 4 Home Rule Nationalists.
As the voters exercised the right to self-determination most of the Sinn Fein Candidates were in British gaols on trumped-up charges never put before a Court, as were many Sinn Fein campaigners, and they remained incarcerated when the Dail met.
Andrew Marr continued – “This was, to put it lightly – a poser for Westminster.”
It’s a poser to for a monstrous regiment of buggers in academia and the media in Britain and Ireland.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF THE IRISH NATION IN THE ELECTIONS, NATIONAL AND LOCAL FROM 1918-1921 THAT YOU CAN FAULT?
Marr’s book is misinformed and misinforming in its treatment of Ireland in those years. Republicans were virtually unarmed and their resistance to Britain’s agents was not unethical. Professor Eoin MacNeill’s clarification of this point to the Archbishop of Tuam is dealt with in my Blog of 13th June – “LEGITIMATE TARGETS FOR ETHICAL CITIZENS” – which should satisfy everyone except conscientious pacifists.
It’s a pity Andrew Marr’s book carries these flaws. It is otherwise excellent. It makes the point that Churchill and Halifax and other British statesmen of the 1930s were as racist as Hitler and supports his analysis with verifiable evidence. I may mine his work for future blogs.
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