JAMES SCANNELL

newspapers papers was the re-election of the outgoing Conservatives and Liberals coalition government led by Lloyd George with 474 seats (338 Conservative and 136 Liberal) and the victory in Ireland by Sinn Fein.

The final outcome for the 105 Irish seats was:

Irish Parliamentary Party – 6 seats (down 62)

Unionists – 26 seats (up eight) Sinn Fein – 73 seats (up 66) Independents – 0 seats (down ten) In some instances, Sinn Féin candidates stood in more than one constituency so that the party’s 73 seats were held by 69 representatives.

For Sinn Féin nationally, the 1918 General Election was an outstanding success. It decimated the Irish Parliamentary Party, which had traditionally been the voice Irish nationalism but by 1918 had failed to secure Home Rule and had lost its charismatic leader John Redmond, who had died on March 6 that year.

Furthermore, Sinn Féin made it clear that those elected would not take their seats in Westminster.

About 47 of the Sinn Féin candidates were elected from prison with one of these, Countess Markievicz, the first woman to be elected to the Houses of Parliament.

On that Saturday, James Hoey, Garrett Waldron, and Peter Leggett, three members of the Bray Sinn Féin organisation who had been arrested, tried and imprisoned following the meeting outside Bray Town Hall on August 15, were released from Belfast’s Crumlin Road Goal and returned home.

When they reached Shankill that evening, where bonfires were burning to mark the victory of Sinn Féin’s Mr Gavan Duffy in the South Dublin Constituency, they were greeted by a crowd of over 1,000 people from Bray, including the Bray Brass Band and Bray Pipers Band. They were brought by torchlight procession in triumph back to Bray and, in the Committee Rooms on Main Street, hospitably entertained.

When the First Dáil met in Dublin’s Mansion House on January 21 1919, less than 30 of the successful candidates were present as most were still held in British prisons.

Mr Barton did attend the inaugural session and during that day Mr Etchingham was released from Lincoln Prison and allowed to return home, as were some of the other successful candidates who were then able to attend later sessions of the Dáil.

nnnn