FIRST DAY IN THE NEW DAIL EIREANN.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3146, 4 December 1922, Page 2

FIRST DAY IN THE NEW DAIL EIREANN.

A PEN IMPRESSION

The London Morning Post’s special correspondent in Dublin thus describes tlie first day in the new Dail Eireann: — My admission card to the Mother of 'lrish Parliaments, which convened yesterday at Leinster House, was entitled “Dail Eireann (Pairlimint Sealadach).” ' Dublin has been such a hotbed of Parliaments during the last year or so that it has not always been easy to know at precisely which one was assisting. The Press adopted a rough atid ready, but not uningenious. method of settling the matter. Tf de Valera was present and did all the talking it was Dail Eireann. If not. it was something else—the Parliament established by the 1920 Act, the Ulster Parliament, the Provisional Parliament, or just any old Parliament. I did not therefore construe my Press card as intimating that I was being admitted to both Dail Eireann and the Provisional Parliament, but that the assembly towardfe which: I was hurrying would begin life as the comparatively insignificant Provisional Parliament, ' and might, with the timely arrival of Eanioim and the other mountainy orators and oratoreescs, he implemented into a. full-blown Dail. Only a small crowd! had gathered to see the Solons arrive, and no rousing cheers tore the. welkin, as they would have done if Griffith and Collins had been there. No Republican two-gun men were grimly in evidence, nor were anv National troops to be seen straining at the musket, though it was said that a number bad been placed a« a matter of precaution in the adjoining museum. The Leinster House auditorium, which is, in fact, a small theatre, is much better adopted for the meeting of a Parliament than any of the previously selected sites. The first Dail met iii the Round Room of the Mansion House, which is built like an amphitheatre, and is the sort of place you would expect to go to see Christians thrown to the Orangemen rather than to bear political speeches. The 1920 Parliament convened in the Council Room at (bo Mansion House, which would have been much too small if the do Valerists had not absented themselves; while Dail Eireann Number Two congregated in a couple of lecture rooms at the National University, where it spent most of its time complaining tiiat the Press, which was confined in a boot closet at the other end of the building, was misinterpreting its Mowing periods. The Leinster House theatre would have been quite big enough if all the members instead of about seventy bad been present. The members occupied the stalls, the Press the stage —a curious reversal of the usual allocation of actors and audience. By eleven o’clock, the hour set for the session to begin, the Press were “in situ,’’ but the stalls were still unoccupied. Only a solitary figure in a tall coat and Anglo-Argentic hat paced nervously up and down the gangway at the back. This was Larry GinnelL once famous in song and story as the man who had been removed from the House of Commons more often than any other Nationalist M.P. in history. And history was to repeat itself. The Bepuhliran Ambassador to the Argentine Free State had come all the way home from Buenos Ayres to give ns a Patti farewell.

By perhaps half-past eleven —punctually as Irish Parliaments go—all the members who Mere expected to arrive Mere in their seats. The auditorium is conveniently divided into three blocks —one, on the Speaker’s right, for the Government; one, on his left, for the Labor Party, which has formally gone into opposition; and one in the centre. destined to be filled in due course. mo surmise, by the great big moderate Centre Party.* Yesterday, however, the Provisional Government put itself on the Speaker’s left, the Labor members —all in ncm' suits —sat on his right, while the centre block was given over to the nondescripts, the dark horses and wobblers*. and the agricultural “bloc.”

Half-past eleven struck, and still there was a pause. I was told that the Beefeaters or, as their official designation will ultimately he, the Irish Stew-eaters, had gone down to the basement, according to the best Parliamentary tradition, to look for Guy Fawkes. Later in the day it was rumored that they had come upon Erskiitc Childers, in a dark corner, crouching over a barrel of incendiary literature, and that when observed he attempted to elude detection by simulating a Catherine wheel. Operations finally commenced by .Mr Cosgrove, the chairman of the Provisional Government, calling upon the Clerk of flic House to read the proclamation summoning the Parliament. He did so and called upon members to tunic forward and sign the roll. All tin's was done without any Speaker, or Chairman, as ho is called here, in the chair.

Eventually it was decided that the Clerk of the House could safely fulfil the functions of the Provisional Chairman, but 1 had an uneasy feeling that some day it will he decided by the House of Lords or The Hague Court of International Arbitration that the whole proceeding was horribly irregular and void, and that the " Act of Union and the Irish Republic still live However, the members signed the roll, and then Air Lawrence Gfnncll gave his little song and dance. He had 1 not signed the roll, he explained, and did not intend to unless ho was first told whether this was Da if Eircann fdr the whole of Ireland. It was pointed out

ta him that there was no Speaker in the chair, but the fractious oki gentleman, who was lashing himself mto ai fine state of indignation—a necessary preliminary, one supposes, to getting chucked out of an assembly:—waived the objection aside, and again demanded to know whether it was a Parliament for the whole of Ireland or a partition Parliament.

Ignoring him as best they could, the House proceeded to elect Professor Michael Hayes as Speaker Mr Thomas Johnson, titular leader of the Irish Parliamentary Labor Party, wanted to know if the Speaker would be a member of the Ministry or tho servant of the House, and was very properly told by Mr Cosgravo that they were not quite such children in matters of government as to propose a member of the Administration for Speaker of the House. Darrell Figgis also arose amidst restrained but audible shouts of “Beaver” from the ushers, and asked the same question over again. The Lord Mayor of Dublin then arose, and soothingly hut belatedly suggested that they should begin by electing a provisional chairman, who should be in the chair when the Speaker was elected. The House, however, proceeded to elect the Speaker, the motion being put by he Clerk of the House All this time the Ginnell person was chattering and expostulating, and shouting: “Is this Dail Eireann for the whole of Ireland?” over and oyer again. The Speaker took the chair, thanked the House for electing: him. and promised to give fair play to every member of the House, Mr Ginney still jabbering at the top of his voice. Having done that, the Speaker lost no time in getting to work upon the now thoroughly hysterical member from the Argentine Republic. “If you have not signed the roll.” ho told him. “you have no right to be here.” Ginnell said he would sign the roll if it was Dail Eireann for all Ireland. and he wanted to know. Either the Speaker did not know himself, or thought that Mr Ginnell should have ‘informed himself from other sources, for he did not attempt to answer the question. Mr Cosgrave now moved that the gentleman who had not signed the roll be expelled from the House, tho Speaker declared the motion carried, and Mr Ginnell. vigorously resisting, was assisted from the Chamber by three obliging attendants.