Laurence Ginnell

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Laurence Ginnell (1854–17 April 1923) was an Irish nationalist, lawyer and politician. He was born in Delvin, Co. Westmeath in 1854. He was self-educated and was called to the Irish and England bars. In his youth he was involved with the Land War and he acted as private secretary to John Blake Dillon.

In 1906 Westminster Election he was elected as an Irish Parliamentary Party MP for Westmeath North. In 1909 he was expelled from the Irish Parliamentary Party for the offence of asking to see the party accounts, after which he sat as a independent Nationalist. During this time he was addressed frequently as "The MP for Ireland." In Westminster he was highly critical of the British Government for holding executions of certain participants in the Easter Rising of 1916. On 9 May he accused the British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith, of "Murder", and was forcibly ejected from the assembly. He visited many of the prisoners who were interned in various prisons in Wales and England and smuggled out correspondence for them.

In 1917 he campaigned to try and ensure the election of Count Plunkett in the Roscommon North by-election in which he defeated the IPP candidate on an abstentionist platform. Following the victory of Éamon de Valera in East Clare, while standing for Sinn Féin, on 10 July 1917, Ginnell resigned his seat in the House of Commons and joined Sinn Féin. At the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis that year, at which the party was re-constituted as a Republican party with de Valera as President, Ginnell and W. T. Cosgrave were elected Honorary Treasurers. In the 1918 Westminster Election, he was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for Westmeath, comfortably defeating his IPP challenger, and attended the proceedings of the First Dáil. He and James O'Mara were the only TDs ever before to sit in a parliament. Ginnell was appointed Director of Propaganda in the Second Ministry of the Irish Republic.

He was appointed the Representative of the Republic in Argentina and South America by de Valera. He carried out his propaganda work here to distribute copies of the Irish Bulletin and to provide the Sinn Féin version of the conflict during the War of Independence. On the 16 August 1921 he returned home to attend the first meeting of the Second Dáil. He travelled back to Argentina some months later to serve as the Representative of the Republic there. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and was elected as an Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD in the 1922 General Election.

On 9 September 1922 Ginnell was the only Anti-Treaty TD to attend the inaugural meeting of the Provisional Parliament. Before signing the roll Ginnell said: "I want some explanation before I sign. I have been elected in pursuance of a decree by Dáil Éireann, which decree embodies the decree of May 20th, 1922. I have heard nothing read in reference to that decree, nothing but an Act of a foreign Parliament. I have been elected as a member of Dáil Éireann. I have not been elected to attend any such Parliament. Will anyone tell me with authority whether it is …." He was at this point interrupted but resumed saying he would sign the roll and take his seat in the Assembly if the Assembly was Dáil Éireann. He was informed he was not allowed raise any such question until a Ceann Comhairle had been elected. He continued to ask questions regardless to which he got no answer including his question "Will any member of the Six Counties be allowed to sit in this Dáil?". W. T. Cosgrave moved at this point that he be excluded from the House, Ginnell protested, and he was dragged out by force. De Valera later appointed him a member of his Council of State, a 12 member body set up to advise him on the deteriorating situation in the Civil War.

He returned to the United States soon after this to serve as the Republic’s envoy in the country. He ordered Robert Briscoe and some of his friends to take possession of the Consular Offices in Nassau Street in New York City, then in the hands of the Free State Government, so as to obtain the list of the subscribers to the bond drive in the United States to help the struggle in the War of Independence. At the time a court case was ongoing to decide on who had the right to the funds, the newly installed Provisional Government or de Valera, as one of the three trustees and those who opposed the Treaty. Laurence Ginnell died in the United States on 17 April 1923 aged 69 years, still campaigning against the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

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This page incorporates information from the Oireachtas Members Database

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