Review of Irish Elections

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 43, 1 November 1923, Page 11

Review of Irish Elections

.The final results of the Irish Free State elections, held last week, . were announced (says the Manchester Guardian for September 7) as follows: Government * • Republicans ’. , . Labor * * 44 * ] Q Farmers Independents (includes two Independent Labor members) 18 Total * ~ ’ 153 .vltw! the La>or farmers’, and Independent members, y 1 the exception of two Independent Labor t ves whose position is not clear, are pledged to support e 1 reaty, so that on the main issue the Government has an overwhelming majority. , M'.P.'J; ledge, Acting President of the “Retake has issued instructions to all his followers not to tclK6 tll6 oath. SOME CURIOUS VERDICTS. The I ree State elections have shown that the Republican minority is strongest in Clare and Kerry (which + S -wild west”), weakest in Dublin and the Home Counties and in that part of the historic Ulster nartv hes Wltllln the Free State boundaries. The Labor pax t 3 with actually fewer seats than it held in the last Dy! has fared worst of all in the borough constituencies Dublin North, Dublin South, and Cork City,—which have returned not a single Labor man between them. The farmers have bettered their position appreciably, though not nearly to the extent that was expected. It is they and the independents who have registered the most substantial gams, partly at the expense of the Government party, mainly at that of Labor, as the following table makes clear: n Old Dail, New Bail. Government ... ... 5 g gg Republicans ... 7 36 44 £ a,,or 17 13 farmers ... ... it> n Independents ... ... 49 18 Total - - ... 128 ' 153 Assuming that the Republicans continue their policy of abstention from the Dail, the Government will be left Tf tLV na, n lty ° f f -7 eV all the other parties combined; if the Republicans decide:to attend, the Government party will be 1,1 a minority and will be faced with the necessity of framing some working arrangement with one or more ot the other groups. nl.lv o ™ l 3 JV C I d . Can , didates who stood (or election probably 100 will forfeit their deposit of £IOO for failing to score a third of the quota. Eleven of them suffered this abject defeat in Dubl.n South alone. The National Exchequer will benefit, and as a pretty high proportion of the beaten candidates are-nonenties, the Dail will not lose greatly by their absence. The prominent figures among the candidates were almost uniformly successful for whichever side they stood. This was oneqf}the queerest points about the elections. Mr. Cosgrave was returned at the head of the poll with a huge surplus above the quota. So was Mr.de i Valera. So was Mr. Mulcahy. So was Mr. Austin Stack. So was Mr. Kevin O’Higgins. Where a Free State leader and a Republican leader were at grips both were usually returned on the first count, as, for example, in North Mayo, where the rivals were Mr P J Ruttledge, “Acting President” of Mr. de Valera’s Republic, and Mr. Joseph McGrath, Minister for Commerce and Industry in the Free State. : The Explanation. • One suspects that the explanation of these indiscriminate successes is racial rather than political. Ireland is always tender to her play-boys, and she can be counted on not to let them down, it seems, whatever: cause they have espoused, If Mr. Cosgrave and Mr, de Valera had swopped constituencies, would they still. have been returned with f such staggering surpluses? It - appears not improbable, though , Clare is by way of being rather exceptional

in the strength of its personal attachment to Mr. de Valera. It is much as if a popular newspaper, were to run. a competition in which the question to be answered. was: “Who are ' your favorite Irish men and Irish women?” There would be many divergences in individual replies, but the representative ones would contain very few names that are not in the list of the - new Bail’s members. And if few of the well-known names have been expunged, it is also true that not many important ones have been added r apart from a batch of Republicans who have either recaptured the seats of which they were temporarily dispossessed, last year or succeeded in gaining entrance for the first time on the strength of a lately acquired renown. Thus,the Countess Markievicz, still faithful to James Connolly’s conception of the “Workers’ Republic,” has regained the seat which she lost a year ago. Others who were not entitled to sit in the last Bail are Air. Austin Stack, Mr. Sean T. O’Kelly, once Sinn Fein’s “ambassador” in Paris, Mr. Ernest O’Malley, and Mr. Ban Breen. All these are among the dozen or more elected Republicans who are in gaol at the moment. Mr. Breen is credited by rumor with an intention to take his seat for Tipperary as soon as the Government will give him the opportunity, whatever the rest .of his party may do. That may or may not be true, but Mr. Breen has always been a doubtful quantity. At last year’s election lie enjoyed the confidence of both parties, and under the socalled “pact” he was nominated by both sides. Notwithstanding this dual sponsoring, he was rejected at the poll. This time the same constituency returned him second to Mr. Seamus Bourke, of the Government party, who was the only Tipperary member of the second Bail to vote with the majority for acceptance of the treaty, and has been in the Bail ever since. Mr. Frank Aiken’s election in Louth was a surprise to his opponents, who are persuaded that it was a consequence of local resentment at Government measures for counteracting potato blight in the districts. Women Members. Another Republican returned is Mr. Brian O’Higgins, who was Speaker in an earlier Bail. Five of the seven women who stood for election were Republicans, and the only one of the five to be rejected was Mrs. O’Callaghan, the widow of the murdered Mayor of Limerick. Miss Mary MacSwiney, who is not only the most forceful woman in her party, but possesses more than her share of its brains, queerly constituted though they are, has been re-electea to the Bail which she scorns. Other Republican women members are Br. Kathleen Lynn, who stands high among her fellows, and Mrs. Cathal Brugha, who, as the widow of a man who died bitterly but bravely, has an influence which is mainly sentimental, but none the less potent.. It is a similar influence to that which ensured the success of the one woman put forward by the Government party, Mrs. O’Driscoll, a sister of Michael Collinsr The only other woman candidate was Miss A. O’Farrelly, who stood independently for the National University and was defeated. Among the accessions to the Government ranks are two University professors Professor A. O’Rahilly, of Cork, and Professor O’Sullivan, of Dublin. The Labor party has lost Mr. Cathal O’Shannon and Alderman William O’Brien, with no counterbalancing gain unless it be in the return of Alderman Corish, who topped the poll in Wexford. Most interesting of all the newcomers to the Bail are a few of the Independents. Two of them Captain AA. A. Redmond and Air. J. Cosgrave, of Galway— members of the old Irish party at Westminster, and they will find in the, Bail another old Nationalist colleague, Alderman Alfred Byrne, whom Dublin North elected second only to Mr, Mulcahy. Captain Redmond contested his father’s old constituency, Waterford, and the first place was believed to lie between him and Dr. V. G. White, the Mayor. Dr. White is another interesting figure, for it was he who first raised the banner of Sinn Fein among a population that had hitherto acknowledged none but the Redmond influence, and it was he who under that banner defeated John Redmond himself. The result of last week’s'" contest was a general - surprise, for not only was Dr. "White rejected altogether, but Captain Redmond himself, though elected, was second to Mrs. Cathal Brugha, who had profited, from the: Labor troubles

with which Waterford has been, afflicted for some monthspast as well as from the associations of her name. Orangeman Member. One of the three Independent candidates returned for Dublin County was Major Bryan Cooper, an ex-Unionist member of Parliament, who appealed particularly to the ex-Unionist population in and around the capital. Finally Major J. S. Myles, who, standing as an Independent, captured the first of the eight Donegal seats, may claim to be the first Orangeman—or ex-Orangeman— to sit in a Free State Parliament. He owes his victory to the widespread popularity that he enjoys among Orangemen and Nationalists alike in Donegal. —-