Perhaps one hundred and three years from now, learned ladies and gentlemen in Harvard and Yale and the New York Times and the Washington Post will be asserting or suggesting that Donald Trump won the 2020 Presidential Election and his victory was stolen from him.
If so, they will be following a disingenuous tradition embraced by Professor Richard English of Queen’s University Belfast, various holders of Doctorates. divers Ducking Quacks including Eoghan Harris and Roy Foster. When these Quacks are challenged, watch how they they Duck. Their fall back position was demolished by Edward MacLysaght in a Diary entry of 28 January 1919 –
“Just one thing before I put this diary away: an example of how our claim for self-determination of small nations – championed by Britain in the case of 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.”
The Irish Parliamentary Party held 73 Irish Seats, Sinn Fein held 6 and the Unionists 26, at the dissolution of Parliament. Following the election the Irish Party held 6 seats (4 by arrangement with Sinn Fein) the Unionists retained 26 seats and Sinn Fein gained 67 seats giving Sinn Fein a total of 73 of Ireland’s 105 seats.
There was no cry of “We wuz robbed” from either Unionists or Nationalists voiced in public*. Nor was a complaint lodged about the conduct of Sinn Fein, 36 of whose victorious candidates (Including its President, Eamon de Valera) had been arrested, deported and lodged in English jails, without charge before the Election. THE TIMES, no supporter of self-determination for Ireland, declared that the election had been considered a Plebiscite by all sides in Ireland.
Uncontested constituencies were not uncommon in the United Kingdom and were very common in Ireland. About ten years before 1918 the Irish Party under John
Redmond took over 80 seats, nearly all of them uncontested and in the 1880s under Parnell over 60 of its 80 odd seats uncontested.
On 9th February 1909 a Convention called by John Redmond, held in Dublin’s Mansion House was “stewarded” by Ancient Order of Hibernians carrying batons which they used, as instructed, to bounce off the heads of anyone speaking with a Cork accent. Ten seats, most of them in Cork were lost by Redmond’s Party to William O’Brien’s All for Ireland League. Redmond’s party never regained them and they went amicably to Sinn Fein in 1918. Following the 1910 General Election two apparently successful Redmondite candidates had their “victory” over-ruled because of corrupt practices.
Sinn Fein, whatever its faults and however numerous detractors, has never been found guilty of electoral fraud or intimidation in its 116 year history.
Trump that, if you can, ye Ducking Quacks and Divers Charlatan!
*John Dillon, had succeeded John Redmond on the latter’s death in March 1918 as Irish Party leader. Dillon lost his Roscommon seat to Eamon de Valera. in the General Election Eamon de Valera got 8,843 votes to Dillon’s 4,451 votes. Dev retained the East Clare seat he’d won in the 1917 by election, and indeed in every election up to and including 1957.
But Dillon told C,P. Scott that the Roscommon voters had been forced by armed men sent from Clare to vote for Dev and that he, Dillon had twice the support Dev had. Dillon had lost the plot and C.P. Scott did not publish his complaint in his paper, the Manchester Guardian.
Republicans in Clare were even worse armed than most non-Crown Forces or Loyalists in Ireland as Edward MacLysaght’s Memoir indicates. Ireland was swarming with journalists during the Election and none of them reported intimidation of voters by Republicans. Not THE IRISH TIMES not THE DAILY MAIL nor even THE MORNING POST
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