Thomas Scanlan (21 May 1874 – 9 January 1930) was an Irish barrister and nationalist politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for North Sligo from 1909 to 1918, as a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
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Son of Thomas Scanlan, a farmer, he was born at Drumcliffe, County Sligo, and educated at Summerhill College in Sligo and at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. In 1905 he married Mary Helen Mullen of Glasgow, daughter of John Mullen.
He began his career as a journalist on the Glasgow Observer. Later he became a solicitor and eventually was called to the English Bar and became prominently identified with the Irish movement in London.
Scanlan was elected unopposed for North Sligo at a by-election in August 1909 after the death of Patrick McHugh MP.[1] and was unopposed in the January and December 1910 general elections.[2] At one time he served as a secretary of the Irish Parliamentary Party. In 1918 he lost his seat to J. J. Clancy of Sinn Féin, by a margin of more than two to one.[3]
Scanlan was responsible for the first successful bill prescribing use of the single transferable vote (STV) for any part of the United Kingdom, the Sligo Corporation Act 1918. Since 1911, when the Proportional Representation Society of Ireland was formed, electoral reform had been seen as a way of ensuring that the Protestant minority in Ireland would be guaranteed effective participation in politics under Home Rule. The Home Rule Act 1914 contained partial provision for STV, but was never implemented. STV was however used for the elections for the new Corporation in Sligo in January 1919, in which the Ratepayers’ Association (consisting largely of Protestants) headed the poll and Sinn Féin came second. Proportional representation has subsequently been a key feature of politics in Ireland, both North and South.
As a barrister, Scanlan represented the Seamen’s and Firemen’s Union at the inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. In the event the government paid the Union's costs, and on this account Scanlan was criticised in some quarters for accepting a government brief, although he had accepted the brief before he knew that the government would pay.[4] He was also criticised for living in England.[5] After his parliamentary defeat he was a London Metropolitan Police Magistrate from 1924 to 1927,[6] resigning due to ill-health. Afterwards he resumed his practice at the Bar.
During his career he was a close friend of T. P. O'Connor, acting as a pall-bearer at the latter's funeral in 1929.
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by Patrick Aloysius McHugh |
Member of Parliament for North Sligo 1909–1918 |
Succeeded by John Joseph Clancy |