(i)) Independent Nationalists
As stated earlier, the new party system did not cater for all interests, especially the supporters of the two dominant parties pre-1916 (the year of the Easter rising, which put the revolutionary Sinn Féin to the forefront of the political scene), the Unionist Party and the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) (Manning 1972: 85). Because some of these voters felt isolated in the new state, Independents ran to represent these ‘lost’ constituencies, being known as Independent Nationalists (or sometimes simply ‘Old IPP’ candidates) and Independent Unionists. Such remnants of old parties were labelled ‘Forlorn Independents’ in the UK context (Nicolson in Bulmer-Thomas 1953: 269).
Independent Nationalists are easily identified, since most of them were former IPP MPs in the House of Commons, and they also stressed their prior affiliation with the IPP during their election campaigns. These Independents defined themselves as constitutional nationalists, and were opposed to the alleged extreme socialism, republicanism and violence of the revolutionary movement that had fought the 1919–1921 war of independence. Because nationalism was the defining ideology of the new state, isolated nationalists were few in number, as opposed to the sizeable communities of ostracised unionist voters. This explains why only four Independent Nationalists ran for office, with three of them elected, Captain William Redmond in Waterford, James Dillon in Monaghan, and James Coburn in Louth.28 Redmond was an archetypal example of an Independent Nationalist. Winner of the only IPP seat outside of Ulster in the 1918 election when Sinn Féin won a huge majority of
28 Redmond was a son of the last leader of the IPP, while Dillon’s father had been the previous
leader. Their vote can be interpreted as a personal vote of loyalty to two important figures of constitutional nationalism. Alfred Byrne, a former IPP MP, also held a seat in the Dáil, but is included in the category of community Independents.
seats, he explicitly continued the IPP tradition in the newly established Dublin parliament (O’Day 2004). As a nationalist, Redmond was in favour of the reunification of the island, but only by peaceful means; he condemned the violence of the two Sinn Féin splinters, once referring to the Department of External Affairs as the government’s agent of propaganda (ibid.). With the consolidation of the fledgling democracy, and as memories of the early twentieth century political scene faded, Independents such as Redmond could not expect to retain a sizeable ‘Old Irish Parliamentary Party’ vote. To preserve their political base, the three TDs all joined Cumann na nGaedheal/Fine Gael in the 1930s,29 a move that spelled the end of the Independent Nationalist candidate.
(ii) Independent Unionists
Following the partition of Ireland, Protestants constituted a significant minority in the Free State (9 percent of the total population). While many of them felt obliged to withdraw from political life in the new state that they saw as anathema to their interests, 30 some Protestants did desire political representation. Where sizeable Protestant communities existed, (primarily in Dublin boroughs, the border counties, and some areas in Cork) they held selection conventions, usually at Orange Order halls, to nominate Independent Unionist candidates.
Their title derives from the label these Independents adopted for themselves at elections. Aside from a functional aim to represent their religious community, Independent Unionists did not have any significantly distinctive campaign platforms. One exception to this was the agricultural policies promoted by the Unionist candidates in the three Ulster counties (who were usually large farmholders in these areas); such was the centrality of agriculture
29
Redmond did not move straight from the Independent ranks to Cumann na nGaedheal. He initially formed a new party, the National League, in 1926, that dissolved in 1930. A year later Redmond joined Cumann na nGaedheal (O’Day 2004).
30 The Irish Unionist Alliance called on Southern Unionists to abstain from the election of 1922, claiming ‘it would be idle to suppose that a Unionist could at the moment secure a hearing for his views at any election in Southern Ireland’ (The Irish Times, 26 May 1922).
to their platform some of these candidates campaigned under the title of ‘Independent Unionist and Farmer’.
Because the Protestant community tended to be relatively affluent, Independent Unionists favoured conservative economic politics, which explains why they usually supported the free market-oriented Cumann na nGaedheal and later Fine Gael in the Dáil. However, Independent Unionists did not agree with all of the social policies implemented by the aforementioned party when in power, many of which had a strong Catholic tinge and did not cater for the interests of the Protestant population (a prime example being the ban on marital divorce, introduced in 1925).
FitzGerald argues that these candidates could be more aptly described as Independent Protestants rather than Independent Unionists.31 The basis of his argument is that Unionism died quickly in the Free State, which was somewhat remarkable given the strength of southern Unionism before partition; consequently, the Independents selected at conventions were chosen to represent Protestant, rather than Unionist, interests. Such nomenclature is based on sound logic, but given the candidates’ preference for the Independent Unionist label, this is how they are they described in the context of this research.
31
Comments made by Garret FitzGerald at Contemporary Issues in Irish History seminar, 24 January 2007.
Table 3.4. Support for Independent Nationalists and Independent Unionists at Dáil elections, 1922–2002
Independent Nationalists Independent Unionists
Year No. of Candidates Candidates elected No. of Votes % of Total Ind. Votes No. of Candidates Candidates elected No. of Votes % of Total Ind. Votes 1922 – – – – 4* 4* – – 1923 2 1 7,629 7.9 10* 6 20,950 21.6 1927.1 – – – – 9 7 35,068 22.2 1927.2 – – – – 7* 7 26,940 25.3 1932 2 1 9,441 6.7 7* 5 28,490 20.3 1933 1 1 7,282 10.6 7* 5 29,086 42.3 1937 – – – – 3 2 20,862 16.0 1938 – – – – 2 2 14,221 23.9 1943 – – – – 3 1 13,980 11.7 1944 – – – – 2 0 8,538 8.2 1948 – – – – 3 1 15,002 13.8 1951 – – – – 3 1 16,124 13.6 1954 – – – – 3 1 15,151 20.0 1957 – – – – 3 1 13,766 17.1 1961 – – – – – – – – 1965 – – – – – – – – 1969 – – – – – – – – 1973 – – – – – – – – 1977 – – – – – – – – 1981 – – – – – – – – 1982.1 – – – – – – – – 1982.2 – – – – – – – – 1987 – – – – 2 0 830 1.1 1989 – – – – – – – – 1992 – – – – 2 0 2,155 2.2 1997 – – – – 1 0 1,657 1.4 2002 – – – – – – – –
* Four candidates were returned unopposed (without an election) to the Dublin University constituency in 1922, and three from 1923 to 1933 inclusive.
Note: The Independent Unionist category includes those candidates who ran on a joint Independent Unionist and Independent Farmer platform.
A classic example of an Independent Unionist was Bryan Ricco Cooper, an army officer who was heavily involved in the Unionist campaign to oppose the third Home Rule Bill (which had the aim of granting a limited form of autonomy to Ireland) in the 1912–1914 period, having been elected as a Unionist MP for Dublin in 1910. Following partition, he adopted a constructive
attitude towards the new state, and was held in high regard by his fellow TDs; one government minister labelled him his ‘moderator of undue rigidity’ (Kelly 2004). Cooper urged southern Unionists to take part in the political process, lest their interests be ignored in the new government (he himself joined Cumann na nGaedheal in 1927); Cooper’s pleas met with some success as he was returned at every election until his death in 1930.
Initially, a significant number of Independent Unionists ran, beginning with 10 in 1923, and holding at a figure between seven and nine until 1937. During this period, they won on average over 29,000 votes, attracting 27 percent of the overall Independent vote. A significant decline began in 1937, from which point on, no more than three Independent Unionists ran at one election. Their vote followed suit, averaging just over 14,000 votes from 1938 until 1961. One reason accounting for the decline in candidates was the transferral of the three University of Dublin seats (which were always filled by Independent Unionists) to the Seanad, under the 1937 constitution. However, the small size of the university electorate means that this does not fully account for the vote drop.
A likely reason is that by the mid-1930s, the new democracy was well- established, and the Protestant fears of persecution within a sectarian state had not materialised. This, combined with a fall in the Protestant population, reduced the numbers of ostracised Protestants. As they were gradually absorbed into the political life of the new state, they saw little need for their own representatives, with most of them transferring their allegiance to Cumann na nGaedheal (King 2000: 89), which attracted two Independent Unionist TDs into its ranks, in 1927 and 1937.32
These trends differed in the border counties, where it took a little longer for the absorption of Protestants to occur, probably because of their proximity to the Northern state. Because the Protestant communities were much larger in this region, where religious affiliation was a cornerstone of one’s identity,
32 Apart from the constituency of Cork East, where Fine Gael directly absorbed the personal vote of one of these former Independent Unionist TDs, a correlation between the Fine Gael and Independent Unionist vote does not reveal significant results, since the Fine Gael vote also declined considerably over this period.
Protestants were not likely to shed their Unionist status as easily as those in the leafy suburbs of Cork or Dublin. Indeed, from 1937 on, all the Independent Unionist candidates (bar two minor figures in the 1980s) were from the three border counties, each of which was represented by a prominent Unionist until the late 1950s; Donegal by James Sproule Myles and William Sheldon, Cavan by John Cole and his son, and Monaghan by Alexander Haslett and his son. Chubb put this persistence down to a different social make-up in the region, claiming ‘a class of small, conservative, highly independent farmers (some of them Protestant) dominates and the parties have never satisfied or attracted the support of some of its members’ (1957: 136), which would explain why some of these candidates adopted the aforementioned mantra of ‘Independent Unionist and Farmer’. The independent status of border Protestants was confirmed by the findings of other research of a ‘consistently strong relationship’ between support for Independents and the number of non- Catholics in an area from 1927 to 1957 (Gallagher 1976: 59) (see also King 2000: 90; Sacks 1976: 153–160). In addition, as table 3.5 shows, the vote for Independents in the border constituencies was sizeably larger than the comparative vote in the other constituencies until the decline of the Independent Unionist candidate in the 1960s.
Table 3.5. Vote for Independents in border constituencies, 1923–1965 Year Border counties Other Constituencies All Constituencies 1923 18.3 8.1 9.5 1927.1 29.7 12.2 14.0 1927.2 24.5 6.2 8.0 1932 28.5 8.5 10.5 1933 18.6 3.5 5.0 1937 20.5 8.3 9.7 1938 16.0 3.2 4.7 1943 28.6 5.3 8.0 1944 28.8 5.8 8.5 1948 27.2 6.2 8.3 1951 28.8 7.4 9.6 1954 17.2 4.4 5.7 1957 14.2 5.7 6.6 1961 3.5 6.0 5.8 1965 0 2.4 2.1
It is difficult to explain this decline, since the major reason it occurred was because no candidates emerged. Instead, we need to ask why did the candidates disappear? Both Gallagher (1976: 62) and Sacks (1976: 535–36) claim that an important factor was the 1961 Electoral (Amendment) Act, which saw Cavan and Donegal East, Independent Unionists’ strongest areas of support, each losing a seat. Prior to the constituency alterations there were enough Protestants to elect a TD in Donegal and almost enough in Cavan. The increase in the electoral quota severely dented Independent Unionists’ chances of winning a seat, since they needed to attract a wider vote, from beyond the Protestant community, something a Unionist candidate would find difficult in a nationalist-dominated political system. Most of these Independents’ former supporters drifted to Fine Gael (Gallagher 1976: 62–63), which sometimes appeared more sympathetic to Protestants, and was not as overtly nationalist as Fianna Fáil.