United Kingdom general election, December 1910 (Ireland)

Irish (UK) general election, December 1910
(part of United Kingdom general election, December 1910)

December 1910

103 of the 670 seats to the House of Commons   First party Second party   Leader John Redmond Viscount Midleton Party Irish Parliamentary Irish Unionist Leader since 6 February 1900 10 February 1910 Leader's seat Waterford City House of Lords Last election 71 seats 18 seats Seats won 73 seats 17 seats Seat change +2 -1   Third party Fourth party   Leader William O'Brien Joseph Chamberlain Party All-for-Ireland Liberal Unionist Leader since 15 January 1910 7 October 1903 Leader's seat Cork City Birmingham West Last election 8 seats 2 seats Seats won 8 seats 2 seats Seat change 0 0

Results of the 1910 election in Ireland. Cork City was a two-seat constituency, in this case both seats were won by the All-for Ireland League.

The Irish component of the December 1910 UK general election took place between 3 and 19 December, concurrently with the polls in Great Britain. Though the national result was a deadlock between the Conservatives and the Liberals, the result in Ireland was, as was the trend by now, a large victory for the Irish Parliamentary Party. The IPP supported the Liberals to form a government after the election. This was to be the party's last victory, however. Due to the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the next general election would not be held until 1918, by which time events both in Ireland and Britain and outside would conspire to see the rise of a new nationalist party, Sinn Féin, and the subsequent demise of the IPP.

It was the government formed by this election which brought in the final, fourth Home Rule bill in 1914. The outbreak of the war led to its delay and eventual abandonment in response to the rise of Sinn Féin.

Summary

The Irish Parliamentary Party under John Redmond continued the run of success it had enjoyed since the 1880s, winning most seats in Leinster, Munster and Connacht. In Ulster, the Conservative and Liberal Unionist alliance continued to dominate, while the Liberals retained their single seat in North Tyrone. The other party to win seats was the All-for-Ireland League, which lost two seats in Counties Louth and Mayo but gained two in County Cork, effectively isolating it to that county; meanwhile Independent Nationalists won seats in South Monaghan and North Westmeath.

Though they had been electorally allied for decades, the Liberal Unionists officially merged with the Conservatives in 1912 to form the Conservative and Unionist Party.

The war caused an unprecedented eight-year gap between this election and the next one. As a result, a large number of by-elections were held over the parliament's term. 1917 saw the first electoral victory for a new nationalist party, Sinn Féin, which won its first seat in the Roscommon North by-election of February 1917. The party would gain more seats in further by-elections, precipitating its landslide victory over the I.P.P. in the 1918 general election. Among the Sinn Féin MPs elected during this time were future Taoiseach and President of Ireland Éamon de Valera and future President of the Executive Council W. T. Cosgrave. Sinn Féin's cause was not Home rule but rather complete independence for an Irish Republic. The party and its members had been heavily involved in the Easter Rising of 1916, in which an unofficial republic had been declared. Its elected MPs operated by a policy of abstentionism from Westminster. Sinn Féin would use its success in the next election to form its own extra-legal parliament, Dáil Éireann in Dublin.

The Dublin College Green by-election of June 1915 saw the first electoral outing of the Irish Labour Party, founded two years previous by James Connolly and James Larkin. The party lost out to the IPP, and did not contest another election until the 1922 Irish general election.

Results

Graph of Irish UK MPs 1885–1918 in numbers

Membership changes

See also

• United Kingdom general election, December 1910
• List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, December 1910 (Ireland)
• The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918

United Kingdom elections in Ireland General elections 1801 co-option 1802 1806 1807 1812 1818 1820 1826 1830 1831 1832 1835 1837 1841 1847 1852 1857 1859 1865 1868 1874 1880 1885 1886 1892 1895 1900 1906 1910 (Jan) 1910 (Dec) 1918 Local elections 1899 1902 1905 1908 1911 1914 1920 See also: Elections in the Kingdom of Ireland Elections in Northern Ireland Elections in the Republic of Ireland