Laurence Ginnell | |
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| Teachta Dála | |
| In office May 1921 – August 1923 | |
| Constituency | Longford–Westmeath |
| In office December 1918 – May 1921 | |
| Constituency | Westmeath |
| Member of Parliament | |
| In office February 1906 – December 1918 | |
| Constituency | Westmeath North |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1852-04-09)9 April 1852 (baptised) Delvin,County Westmeath, Ireland |
| Died | 17 April 1923(1923-04-17) (aged 71) Washington, D.C., USA |
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Laurence Ginnell (baptised 9 April 1852 – 17 April 1923) was anIrish nationalist politician,lawyer and Member of Parliament (MP) of theHouse of Commons of theUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of theIrish Parliamentary Party forWestmeath North at the1906 UK general election. From 1910 he sat as an Independent Nationalist and at the1918 general election he was elected forSinn Féin.[1]
Ginnell was born inDelvin,County Westmeath, in 1852, the son of Laurence Ginnell and Mary Monaghan and twin to Michael Ginnell.[2] He was self-educated and was called to theIrish bar as well as the Bar of England and Wales. In his youth, he was involved with theLand War and acted as private secretary toJohn Dillon.[3]
The last great social and agrarian campaign of thehome rule movement, theRanch War (1906 and 1909), was largely led and organised by Ginnell from the central office of theUnited Irish League. Ginnell was elected an MP in 1906, took his seat at Westminster and swore allegiance toEdward VII. On 14 October 1906, he launched the "war" atDowns, County Westmeath:
The purpose of the war was to bring relief to the large numbers of landless and smallholders, particularly in the West, who were relatively untouched by theWyndham Land Purchase Act (1903) and by the larger policy of purchase. The strategy that Ginnell pursued was theDown's Policy, or cattle driving, a proceeding designed to harass the prosperous grazier interests, whose 'ranches' occupied large, under populated and under worked tracts. The 'Down's Policy' was also meant to draw public attention to the scandalous inequalities that survived in the Irish countryside. The conservatives within theHome rule leadership were understandably suspicious about the revival of agrarian disturbances, but the mood of the party organisation was hardening in the aftermath of a disappointing devolution bill in May 1907, from the newLiberal government, so that it seemed logical to turn to the traditional mechanism for reactivating the national question: agrarian agitation.[4]
Ginnell's cattle drives began to tail off after the summer of 1908, and the agitation was finally dissolved with the passage of a 1909 Act by the Liberal Chief SecretaryAugustine Birrell that allowed the transfer to theLand Commission of farmland bycompulsory purchase, which was hailed by the national movement as an historic victory. In reality, the Ranch War involved an implosion within sectors of the Irish Party, as its leadership had not facilitated the working of the Wyndham Land Purchase Act in the first place becauseJohn Dillon and his like wanted conflict above victory.[5]
In 1909, Ginnell was expelled from theIrish Parliamentary Party (IPP) for the offence of asking to see the party accounts after which he sat as anIndependent Nationalist. During that time, he was addressed frequently as "The MP for Ireland". AtWestminster, he was highly critical of the British government's war policy and its holding of executions of certain participants in theEaster Rising of 1916. On 9 May, he accused British Prime MinisterH. H. Asquith, of "Murder" and was forcibly ejected from the Chamber. He visited many of the prisoners who were interned in various prisons in Wales and England.[3]
In 1917, he campaigned to try to ensure the election ofCount Plunkett in theRoscommon North by-election in which he defeated the IPP candidate on an abstentionist platform. Following the victory ofÉamon de Valera inEast Clare, while he was standing forSinn Féin, on 10 July 1917, Ginnell joined Sinn Féin.
At the Sinn FéinArd Fheis that year, at which the party was reconstituted as a republican party with de Valera as President, Ginnell andW. T. Cosgrave were elected Honorary Treasurers. He was imprisoned in March 1918 for encouraging land agitation and later deported toReading Gaol. In the1918 general election, he was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for theWestmeath constituency by comfortably defeating his IPP challenger. After his release from prison, he attended the proceedings of theFirst Dáil. Along with fellow TDJames O'Mara, he was one of the onlyTDs to serve as a member in both theHouse of Commons andDáil Éireann.
He was one of thefew people to have served in the House of Commons and in theOireachtas. He was appointedDirector of Propaganda in theSecond Ministry of theIrish Republic.[6]After spending a year as a republican campaigner in Chicago, he was appointed the Representative of the Irish Republic inArgentina and South America by de Valera. He carried out his propaganda work here to distribute copies of theIrish Bulletin and to provide the Sinn Féin version of the conflict during theWar of Independence. On 16 August 1921 he returned home to attend the first meeting of theSecond Dáil. He travelled back to Argentina some months later to serve as the Representative of the Republic there.
He opposed theAnglo-Irish Treaty that was ratified by the Dáil in January 1922, and was elected as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD at the1922 general election on the eve of theIrish Civil War.[7]
On 9 September 1922, Ginnell was the only anti-Treaty TD to attend the inaugural meeting of the Provisional Parliament orThird Dáil. 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 20 May 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 that point interrupted but resumed by saying that he would sign the roll and take his seat in the Assembly if the Assembly wereDáil Éireann. He was informed he was not allowed raise any such question until aCeann 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?"[8] 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 twelve-member body set up to advise him on the deteriorating situation in the civil war. Ginnell returned to the United States soon afterwards to serve as the Republic's envoy in the country. He orderedRobert Briscoe and some of his friends to take possession of the Consular Offices in Nassau Street, New York City, then in the hands of theFree State Government, to obtain the list of the subscribers to the bond drive organized to aid 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 among the anti-Treatyites. Ginnell died in the United States on 17 April 1923, aged 71, still campaigning against the Anglo-Irish Treaty.[citation needed]
Works by or aboutLaurence Ginnell atWikisource| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forWestmeath North 1906–1918 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forWestmeath 1918–1922 | Constituency abolished |
| Oireachtas | ||
| New constituency | Teachta Dála forWestmeath 1918–1921 | Constituency abolished |
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| National | |
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