1918 United Kingdom general election in Ireland

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105 of the 707 seats to theHouse of Commons of the United Kingdom Sinn Féin members sat in theDáil Éireann
First party Second party Third party   Leader Éamon de Valera Sir Edward Carson John Dillon Party Sinn Féin Irish Unionist Irish Parliamentary Leader since 25 October 1917 1910 March 1918 Leader's seat East Clareand East Mayo Belfast Duncairn East Mayo(defeated) Last election n/a 17 seats, 28.6% 74 seats, 43.6% Seats before 6 17 67 Seats won 73[a] 22 6 Seat change 73 5 68 Popular vote 497,107[b] 257,314[b] 220,837[b] Percentage 46.9% 25.3% 21.7% Swing New party 3.3% 21.9%
Results of the 1918 election in Ireland by MPs elected. Sinn Féin MPs refused to sit in the House of Commons and instead formed Dáil Éireann. The Irish Parliamentary Party, Irish Unionist Alliance, Labour Unionist Party and an independent Unionist MP remained in Westminster.

The Irish component of the1918 United Kingdom general election took place on 14 December 1918. It was the final United Kingdom general election to be held throughout Ireland, as the next election would happen following Irish independence. It is a key moment in modernIrish history, seeing the overwhelming defeat of the moderatenationalistIrish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which had dominated theIrish political landscape since the 1880s, and a landslide victory for the radicalSinn Féin party. Sinn Féin had never previously stood in a general election, but had won six seats inby-elections in 1917–1918. The party had vowed inits manifesto to establish an independentIrish Republic. InUlster, however, theUnionist Party was the most successful party.

In the aftermath of the elections, Sinn Féin's elected members refused to attend theBritish Parliament inWestminster (London), and instead formed a parliament in Dublin, theFirst Dáil Éireann ("Assembly of Ireland"), whichdeclared Irish independence as a republic. TheIrish War of Independence was conducted under this revolutionary government which sought international recognition, and set about the process of state-building.^[1][2] The other parties elected in the election were invited by Sinn Féin to join in creating the Dáil Éireann, but declined and took up their seats at Westminster.

In 1918 a system calledplural voting was in place in both Britain and Ireland. Plural voting was a practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. Property and business owners could vote both in the constituency where their property lay and that in which they lived, if the two were different. This system often resulted in one person being able to cast multiple votes. In the newly formedIrish Free State this system was ended by theElectoral Act 1923 and was abolished in the UK by theRepresentation of the People Act 1948. Plural voting remained in effect inNorthern Ireland until 1969.^[3]

The 1918 election was held in the aftermath ofWorld War I, theEaster Rising and theConscription Crisis. It was the first general election to be held after theRepresentation of the People Act 1918. It was thus the first election in which women over the age of 30, and all men over the age of 21, could vote. Previously, all women and most working-class men had been excluded from voting.

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In 1918 the whole ofIreland was a part of theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and was represented in theBritish Parliament by 105Members of Parliament (MPs). Whereas inGreat Britain most elected politicians were members of either theLiberal Party or theConservative Party, from the early 1880s most Irish MPs wereIrish nationalists, who sat together in the British House of Commons as theIrish Parliamentary Party.

The IPP strove forHome Rule, that is, limited self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom, and had been supported by mostIrish people, especially theCatholic majority. Home Rule was opposed by mostProtestants in Ireland, who formed a majority of the population in parts of the northern province ofUlster but a minority in the rest of Ireland, and favoured maintenance of the Union with Great Britain (and were therefore calledUnionists).

The Unionists were supported by the Conservative Party, whereas from 1885 the Liberal Party was committed to enacting some form of Home Rule. Unionists eventually formed their own representation, first theIrish Unionist Party then theUlster Unionist Party. Home Rule appeared to have been finally achieved with the passing of theHome Rule Act 1914. However, the implementation of the Act was temporarily postponed with the outbreak ofWorld War I due to determined Ulster Unionists' resistance to the Act. As the war prolonged and with the failure to make any progress on the issue, the more radicalSinn Féin began to grow in strength.

Sinn Féin was founded byArthur Griffith in 1905. He believed that Irish nationalists should emulate theAusgleich ofHungarian nationalists who, in the 19th century underFerenc Deák, had chosen to boycott the imperial parliament inVienna and unilaterally established their own legislature inBudapest.

Griffith had favoured a peaceful solution based on 'dual monarchy' withBritain, that is two separate states with a single head of state and a limited central government to control matters of common concern only. However, by 1918, under its new leaderÉamon de Valera, Sinn Féin had come to favour achieving separation from Britain by means of an armed uprising if necessary and the establishment of an independent republic.

In the aftermath of the1916 Easter Rising the party's ranks were swelled by participants and supporters of the rebellion as they were freed from British prisons andinternment camps, and at its 1917Ard Fheis (annual conference) de Valera was elected leader and the new, more radical policy adopted.

Prior to 1916, Sinn Féin had been a fringe movement having a limited cooperative alliance withWilliam O'Brien'sAll-for-Ireland League and enjoyed little electoral success. However, between the Easter Rising of that year and the 1918 general election, the party's popularity increased dramatically. This was due to the failure to have the Home Rule Bill implemented when the IPP resisted thepartition of Ireland demanded byUlster Unionists in 1914, 1916 and 1917, but also popular antagonism towards the British authorities created by the execution of most of the leaders of the 1916 rebels and by their botched attempt to introduce Home Rule on the conclusion of theIrish Convention linked with militaryconscription in Ireland (seeConscription Crisis of 1918).

Sinn Féin demonstrated its new electoral capability in four by-election successes in 1917 in whichCount Plunkett,Joseph McGuinness, de Valera andW. T. Cosgrave were each elected, although it lost three by-elections in early 1918 before winning two more withPatrick McCartan andArthur Griffith. In one case there were unproven allegations of electoral fraud.^[4] The party had benefitted from a number of factors in the 1918 elections, includingdemographic changes andpolitical factors.

The Irish electorate in 1918, as with the entire electorate throughout the United Kingdom, had changed in two major ways since the preceding general election. Firstly, there was a "generational" change because of theFirst World War, which meant that the British general election due in 1915 had not taken place. As a result, no election took place between 1910 and 1918, the longest gap in modern British and Irish constitutional history until then (it was superseded in Britain in 1935–45). Thus the 1918 election saw, in particular:

• All voters between the age of 21 and 29 were first time general election voters. They had no history of past voter loyalty to the IPP to fall back on, and had begun their political awareness in the period of 8 years that had seen a bitter world war, the home rule controversy and the Easter Rising and its aftermath.
• A generation of older voters, most of them IPP supporters, had died in that eight-year period.
• Emigration (except to Britain) had been almost impossible during the war because of the dangerous sea lanes, which meant that tens of thousands of young people were in Ireland who in normal times would have been abroad.
• As Ireland had not had conscription, Unionists and moderate Nationalists had predominantly made up the volunteers for the duration of the war. Consequently, there was a large loss in the age range of young Unionists and moderate Nationalists, which did not occur amongst Republicans who had not volunteered.

Secondly, thefranchise had been greatly extended by theRepresentation of the People Act 1918. This grantedvoting rights to women (albeit only those over 30) for the first time, and gave all men over 21 and military servicemen over 19 a vote in parliamentary elections without property qualifications. The Irish electorate increased from around 700,000 to about two million.^[5]

Overall, a new generation of young voters, and the sudden influx of women over thirty, meant that vast numbers of new voters of unknown voter affiliation existed, changing dramatically the composition of the Irish electorate.

• Since the previousgeneral election in December 1910, the formerly-dominant Irish Parliamentary Party, unchallenged for nearly a decade, was largely of an older generation. Its local organisation had atrophied, making defence of its seats difficult. The party's votes in parliament had been decisive in passing the1914 Home Rule Act but, due to the outbreak of theWar, it was never put into effect. The party's policy was to achieve All-Ireland self-government constitutionally, within the framework of the United Kingdom, as opposed to using separatist physical force.
• The electorate had become enamoured with Sinn Féin, particularly due to the harsh response of the authorities to theEaster Rising. Sinn Féin had been falsely blamed for the Rising even though it had taken no part in it. The party also took most of the credit for the successful campaign to prevent the introduction ofconscription in 1918.
• Whereas the IPP had conceded a temporary form ofpartition in 1914 and 1916, as a measure to pacifyUlster loyalist.^[6] Sinn Féin felt that that would worsen and prolong any differences between north and south.
• In contrast to the IPP, Sinn Féin were seen as a young and radical force. Its leaders, such asMichael Collins (28) and de Valera (36), were young militant politicians, like most of the new voters and their imprisoned republican candidates.
• IPP leaders such asJohn Dillon, who had been in public office since the 1880s, were largely older, moderate politicians, and had campaigned for All-Ireland Home Rule since the time ofCharles Stewart Parnell, and continued to press for the implementation of the 1914 Act, and a constitutional solution to have Ulster included in the jurisdiction of a Dublin parliament.
• On the other hand, Sinn Féin promoted a radical new policy of achieving Irish self-government outside of the UK, and many of itsvolunteer wing were ready to defend a republic with physical force. By 1918, Sinn Féin followers had come to see the gradual acquisition of All-Ireland Home Rule as an idea whose time had come and gone.
• The Irish population had been radicalised during World War I. In addition to the heavy losses suffered byIrish regiments, the conscription threat and British military measures, there was rapidinflation that sparked off a wave of strikes and industrial disputes. The 1918 election also occurred at a time of revolution across Europe.
• Unionist fear of Home Rule, or worse, separation, solidified after the Rising, and the Unionist vote was enhanced in Ulster by the increased electorate. It was the first election since theUlster Covenant, the formation of theUlster Volunteers (UVF), and theBattle of the Somme.
• Sinn Féin's policy was outlined in itselection manifesto, which aimed for Irish representation at anypost-war peace conference. By contrast, IPP policy was to leave negotiation to the British government.
• Nearly a year earlier, in January 1918,Woodrow Wilson had issued hisFourteen Points policy, which seemed to promise that self-government and self-determination would become the norm in international relations.
• The Ulster Unionists' resistance to All-Ireland self-government remained unresolved, and little account was taken of Unionist reservations about what they contended would beCatholic rule from Dublin.

Forty-four outgoing members of the 30th Parliament did not seek re-election:

Six MPs stood under a different political affiliation from theDecember 1910 general election.

One MP stood under a different political affiliation from their by-election victory.

Voting in most Irish constituencies occurred on Saturday, 14 December 1918. While the rest of the United Kingdom fought the 'Khaki election' on other issues involving the British parties, in Ireland four major political parties had national appeal. These were the IPP, Sinn Féin, theIrish Unionist Party and theIrish Labour Party. The Labour Party, however, decided not to participate in the election, fearing that it would be caught in the political crossfire between the IPP and Sinn Féin; it thought it better to let the people make up their minds on the issue of Home Rule versus a Republic by having a clear two-way choice between the two nationalist parties. The Unionist Party favoured continuance of the union with Britain (along with its subordinate, theUlster Unionist Labour Association, who fought as Labour Unionists). A number of other small nationalist parties also took part.

Ireland had 105 seats elected from 103 constituencies. Ninety-nine seats were elected from single-seat geographical constituencies under thefirst-past-the-post voting system. There were two two-seat constituencies:Dublin University (Trinity College) elected two MPs under thesingle transferable vote andCork City elected two MPs under thebloc voting system.

In addition to ordinary geographical constituencies there were three university constituencies: theQueen's University of Belfast (which returned a Unionist), Dublin University (which returned two Unionists) and theNational University (which returned a member of Sinn Féin).

Of the 105 seats, 25 were uncontested, with a Sinn Féin candidate winning unopposed. Seventeen of these seats were inMunster. In some cases it was because there was a certain winner in Sinn Féin.

Summary of 14 December 1918Dáil Éireann andHouse of Commons (Irish seats) election results
Party		Leader	Votes	% Votes	Swing%	TDs/MPs	Change (since Dec. 1910)	% of seats
	Sinn Féin	Éamon de Valera	476,087	46.9[nb 1]	46.9	73	73	69.5
	Irish Unionist	Edward Carson	257,314	25.3	3.3	22	5	20.9
	Irish Parliamentary	John Dillon	220,837	21.7	21.9	6	67	5.7
	Labour Unionist	None	30,304	3.0	3.0	3	3	2.8
	Belfast Labour	None	12,164	1.2	1.2	0	0	0
	Ind. Unionist	—[nb 2]	9,531	0.9	0.9	1	1	0.95
	Ind. Nationalist	—	8,183	0.8	N/A	0	2	0
	Independent Labour	—	659	0.1	0.1	0	0	0
	Independent	—	436	0.1	0.1	0	0	0
Total			1,015,515	100		105

In this election, 75 candidates who had never previously been elected to Parliament were elected.

Sinn Féin candidates won 73 seats out of 105, but four party candidates (Arthur Griffith, Éamon de Valera, Eoin MacNeill andLiam Mellows) were elected for two constituencies and so the total number of individual Sinn Féin MPs elected was 69. Despite the isolated allegations ofintimidation andelectoral fraud on the part of both republicans and unionists, the election was seen as a landslide victory for Sinn Féin.

Sinn Féin received 46.9% of votes island-wide, and 65% of votes in the area that became theIrish Free State.^[7] However, the 46.9% is not the total result of the overall success of Sinn Féin. That figure only accounts for 48 seats that they won because in 25 of the other constituencies the other parties did not contest them, and Sinn Féin won them unopposed. Most of these constituencies were Sinn Féin strongholds. It has been estimated that, had the 25 seats been contested, Sinn Féin would have received at least 53% of the vote island-wide.^[8] However, this is a conservative estimate and the percentage would likely have been higher.^[8] Sinn Féin also did not contest four seats due to a deal with the IPP (see below). Labour, who had pulled out in the south under instructions to 'wait', polled better in Belfast than Sinn Féin.^[9] Within the 26 counties that became the Irish Free State, Sinn Féin achieved 400,269 votes in the contested seats out of 606,117 total votes cast which amounted to a huge landslide of 66.0% in the vote and winning 70 out of the 75 constituencies.

The Irish Unionist Party won 22 seats and 25.3% of the vote island-wide (29.2% when Labour Unionist candidates are included), becoming the second-largest party in terms of MPs. The success of the unionists, who won 26 seats overall,^[10] was largely limited toUlster. Otherwise,southern unionists were elected only in the constituencies ofRathmines andDublin University which returned two. In the 26 counties that later became the Irish Free State and then the Republic of Ireland, the Irish Unionist Alliance polled 37,218 votes from 101,839 total votes cast for other parties in the constituencies that they stood a candidate. However, if all of the total votes in the contested seats where the Irish Unionist Alliance did not stand are included there was a total of 606,117 votes cast, which converts the Irish Unionist Alliance share of the vote in the 26 counties to just 6.1%. With the one Independent Unionist being elected for Dublin University adding 0.1% in total with 793 votes to give 6.2% across the 26 counties and only 3 seats won by the Unionists.

The IPP suffered a catastrophic defeat including the loss of its leader,John Dillon. It won only six seats in Ireland, its losses exaggerated by the "first-past-the-post" system which gave it a share of seats far short of its much larger share of the vote (21.7%) and the number of seats it would have won under a "proportional representation" ballot system. All but one of its seats were in Ulster. The exception wasWaterford City, the seat previously held byJohn Redmond, who had died earlier in the year, and retained by his sonCaptain William Redmond. Four of their Ulster seats were part of the deal to avoid unionist victories which saved some for the party but may have cost it the support of Protestant voters elsewhere. The IPP came close to winning other seats inCounty Louth andWexford South, and in general their support held up better in the north and east of the island. The party was represented in Westminster by seven MPs becauseT. P. O'Connor won theLiverpool Scotland seat he had held since the1885 election due to Irish emigrant votes. The remnants of the IPP in time became theNationalist Party of Northern Ireland under the leadership ofJoseph Devlin. In the 26 counties that became the Irish Free State, the Irish Parliamentary Party won 181,320 votes out of 606,117 total votes cast in the contested seats, amounting to a 26.0% vote share. If the Independent Home Rule Nationalists are included there were 11,162 votes which comes to 1.8% and a vote share of 27.8% for the Nationalists. The Irish Parliamentary Party held on to just 2 seats in the 26 counties that became Southern Ireland and then the Irish Free State.

InUlster (nine counties), Unionists won 23 out of the 38 seats with Sinn Féin gaining ten and the Irish Parliamentary Party five. There was a limited electoral pact brokered by Roman Catholic CardinalMichael Logue in December between Sinn Féin and the Nationalist IPP in eight seats. However, it only concluded after nominations closed.

Sinn Féin instructed its supporters to vote IPP in Armagh South, despite no Unionist candidate (79 SF votes), Down South (33 SF votes for Éamon de Valera), Tyrone North-East (56 SF votes) and Donegal East (46 SF votes). The IPP instructed its supporters to vote Sinn Féin in Fermanagh South (132 IPP votes) which had no Unionist candidate, Londonderry City (120 IPP votes) where Eoin MacNeill narrowly beat the Unionist, and Tyrone North-West also against a Unionist but where no IPP candidate was nominated.

The discipline of voters, when faced with two rival nationalist candidates and with only a post-nomination pact, was impressive. The pact only broke down in Down East where a Unionist won as the IPP candidate refused to participate, thus splitting the Catholic nationalist vote.

There was no pact in Belfast Falls which Joe Devlin (IPP) won with 8,488 votes against 3,245 for Éamon de Valera (SF) although no Unionist stood. The only other Belfast seat contested by both nationalist parties wasDuncairn against Edward Carson; otherwise, Sinn Féin stood alone in seven seats reaching double figures in two.Monaghan North was won by Sinn Féin's Ernest Blythe in a three-cornered fight against both IPP and Unionist candidates.

In the Monaghan South, and Donegal North, South and West seats, despite no Unionist standing, Sinn Féin won all four against IPP candidates.

Sinn Féin took the two (uncontested) Cavan seats with Arthur Griffith taking his second in Cavan East as well as that of Tyrone North West.

In six contested seats no Unionist stood.

Unionists won a clear majority of the 38 Ulster seats including eight of the nine in Belfast. In the six Ulster counties which formed the future Northern Ireland, Unionists won 23 of the 30 seats. The vote totals were:^[8]

On 21 January 1919, 27 (out of 101 elected) members representing thirty constituencies answered the roll ofDáil Éireann—theIrish for "Assembly of Ireland". Invitations to attend the Dáil had been sent to all 100 men and one woman who had been elected on 14 December 1918.Eoin MacNeill had been elected for bothLondonderry City and theNational University of Ireland. Thirty-three republicans were unable to attend as they were in prison, most of them without trial since 17 May 1918. Pierce McCan (of Tipperary East), who died in prison, would have brought the total to thirty-four. Of the 69 republicans elected, most had fought in theEaster Rising.^[11]

In accordance with the Sinn Féin manifesto, their elected members refused to attendWestminster, having instead formed their own parliament. Dáil Éireann was, according to John Patrick McCarthy, the revolutionary government under which theIrish War of Independence was fought and which sought international recognition.^[1] Maryann Gialanella Valiulis says that having justified its existence, the Dáil provided itself with a theoretical framework and set about the process ofstate-building.^[2]

After having dominated Irish politics for four decades, the IPP was so decimated by its massive defeat that it dissolved soon after the election. As mentioned above, its remains became the Northern Ireland-based Nationalist Party, which survived in Northern Ireland until 1969.

TheBritish administration and unionists refused to recognise the Dáil. At its first meeting attended by 27 deputies (others were still imprisoned or impaired) on 21 January 1919 the Dáil issued aDeclaration of Independence and proclaimed itself the parliament of a new state, theIrish Republic.

On the same day, in unconnected circumstances, two members of theRoyal Irish Constabulary guardinggelignite were killed in theSoloheadbeg Ambush by members of theIrish Volunteers. Although it had not ordered this incident, the course of events soon drove the Dáil to recognise the Volunteers as the army of the Irish Republic and the ambush as an act of war against Great Britain. The Volunteers therefore changed their name, in August, to theIrish Republican Army.

The train of events set in motion by the elections would eventually bring about the creation of theIrish Free State as a British dominion in 1922. That state became the first internationally recognised independent Irish state in 1931, when theStatute of Westminster removed virtually all of the UK Parliament's remaining authority over the Free State and the other dominions. The Free State eventually evolved into the modernRepublic of Ireland. The leaders of the Sinn Féin candidates elected in 1918, such as de Valera,Michael Collins and W. T. Cosgrave, came to dominate Irish politics. De Valera, for example, would hold some form of elected office from his first election as an MP in aby-election in 1917 until 1973. The two major parties in the Republic of Ireland today,Fianna Fáil andFine Gael, are both descendants of Sinn Féin, which first enjoyed substantial electoral success in 1918.

• History of Ireland (1801–1923)

• Coogan, Tim Pat.Michael Collins.
• McCarthy, John Patrick.Ireland: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present.
• Valiulis, Maryann Gialanella.Portrait of a revolutionary: General Richard Mulcahy and the founding of the Irish Free State.
• Laffan, Michael.The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party, 1916–1923.
• Comerford, Maire (1969).The First Dáil. Joe Clarke.
• Macardle, Dorothy.The Irish Republic.

• General elections in Ireland
• 1918 United Kingdom general election
• Home rule in Ireland
• General elections in Ireland to the Parliament of the United Kingdom
• 1st Dáil
• December 1918
• 1918 elections in Ireland

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