Members of the Senate of Southern Ireland

The Senate of Southern Ireland was the upper house of the Parliament of Southern Ireland, established de jure in 1921 under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act stipulated that there be 64 senators, but only 40 were selected and the Senate met only briefly before being dissolved.

It met on 28 June 1921 in the Royal College of Science for Ireland, on 13 July at the Department of Agriculture, and a third time in July.[1][2]

Composition

The Senate's composition was specified in the Second Schedule of the 1920 Act, and the mode and time of selection in the Fourth Schedule. These were similar to those suggested for the Senate in the report of the Irish Convention of 1917–18.[3] The 64 members were as follows:

• 3 ex officio members:
  • The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, intended as the presiding officer of the Senate. The Lord Chancellor had previously been the chairman of the Irish House of Lords in the Parliament of Ireland prior to its abolition.[4]
  • The Lord Mayor of Dublin and the Lord Mayor of Cork.
• 17 "Representatives of Commerce (including Banking), Labour, and the Scientific and Learned Professions" to be nominated by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for a term of 10 years.
• 44 members elected by various interest groups from among their respective memberships, using the single transferable vote:
  • Elected for a term of 10 years:
    • 4 Archbishops or Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church holding Sees situated wholly or partly in Southern Ireland.
    • 2 Archbishops or Bishops of the Church of Ireland holding Sees situated wholly or partly in Southern Ireland.
    • 16 Peers (not necessarily members of the Peerage of Ireland) who were taxpayers, or ratepayers in respect of property, and had residences, in Southern Ireland.
    • 8 members of the Privy Council of Ireland of no less than two years standing who were taxpayers or ratepayers in respect of property in and had residences in Southern Ireland.
  • 14 representatives of County Councils, elected for a term of three years:
    • 4 from each of Leinster, Munster, and Connacht
    • 2 from the three Ulster counties not in Northern Ireland (Cavan, Donegal,and Monaghan)

In practice, however, only 40 senators were selected. The Irish Republic declared by Sinn Féin in 1919 rejected the legitimacy of the 1920 Act. Sinn Féin gained control of the county councils in the 1920 local elections. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Labour Party supported the Republic, and the Roman Catholic hierarchy also refused to co-operate. Of the incomplete membership, many had participated in the Irish Convention.[5] Not all those selected attended its few sessions.

In 1922, both the Irish Republic and Southern Ireland were superseded by Irish Free State. Some of the Southern Ireland senators were subsequently senators in the Free State Seanad (upper house), either appointed by W. T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council, or elected by the members of the Dáil (lower house).

List

Class	Name	Attendance	Irish Convention	Free State Seanad	Notes
Lord Chancellor of Ireland	Sir John Ross, Bt	Too ill to attend
Lord Mayor of Dublin	Laurence O'Neill	Boycotted	Member		Independent Nationalist
Lord Mayor of Cork	Daniel O'Callaghan	Boycotted	Then incumbent (Thomas C. Butterfield) was a member		Sinn Féin. Elected for Cork Borough in the 1921 election to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. Article 18(4) of the 1920 Act precluded anyone from sitting in both Houses at once; since O'Callaghan boycotted both, sitting instead in the Second Dáil, the conflict was not resolved.
Commerce	Edward H. Andrews	Attended	Member		Former president of Dublin Chamber of Commerce.[6]
Commerce (Retail)	Sir John Arnott, Bt	Attended			Of Arnotts department store
Commerce (Farming)	Sir Nugent Everard, Bt	Attended		Appointed
Commerce (Banking)	Henry Guinness	Attended		Appointed
Commerce (Distilling)	Andrew Jameson	Attended	Member	Appointed
Commerce or Professions	H. P. Glenn	Attended			Former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.[7] Some accounts misspell his surname as "Glynn."[8][9]
Commerce or Professions	George O'Callaghan-Westropp	Attended			Landowner and local government activist.[10]
Professions (Education)	Sir Andrew Beattie	Attended			Commissioner of National Education. Leading Dublin Presbyterian.
Professions (Education)	J. W. R. Campbell	Attended			Schoolmaster and Methodist minister.[11]
Professions (Law)	Frederick F. Denning	Attended			King's Counsel.[12]
Professions (Law)	Charles Gamble	Attended			President of the Law Society of Ireland.[13]
Professions (Engineering)	Sir John Griffith	Did not attend		Elected
Professions (Medicine)	Sir John William Moore	Attended			Physician to the Meath Hospital and medical administrator.[14]
Professions (Medicine)	Sir William Taylor	Attended			Former President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.[15]
Labour	Three Representatives not selected	Boycotted	Seven members
Bishop (Roman Catholic)	Four Representatives not selected	Did not attend	Four members (Cashel, Ross, Raphoe, and Down & Connor).
Bishop (Church of Ireland)	Charles D'Arcy	Did not attend	Predecessor (John Crozier) was a member.		Archbishop of Armagh. The see is mainly in Northern Ireland.
Bishop (Church of Ireland)	John Gregg	Attended	Predecessor (John Bernard) was a member		Archbishop of Dublin
Peer	Lord Cloncurry	Attended
Peer	Earl of Desart	Did not attend	Member
Peer	Earl of Donoughmore	Did not attend
Peer	Earl of Dunraven	Did not attend	Member	Appointed
Peer	Lord de Freyne	Did not attend
Peer	Lord HolmPatrick	Did not attend
Peer	Lord Inchiquin	Did not attend
Peer	Lord Kenmare	Did not attend
Peer	Earl of Mayo	Did not attend	Member	Appointed
Peer	Earl of Midleton	Did not attend	Member
Peer	Lord Oranmore	Did not attend	Member
Peer	Viscount Powerscourt	Did not attend
Peer	Lord Rathdonnell	Attended
Peer	Marquess of Sligo	Attended
Peer	Earl of Wicklow	Did not attend		Appointed
Peer	16th representative	Did not attend
Privy Councillor	Earl of Meath	Did not attend
Privy Councillor	Earl of Granard	Did not attend	Member	Appointed
Privy Councillor	Sir William Goulding, 1st Bt	Did not attend	Member
Privy Councillor	Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh	Did not attend	Member		Irish Parliamentary Party MP for Carlow County 1908–10. Previously a Unionist,[16] and chairman of Carlow County Council.[17]
Privy Councillor	Sir Bryan Mahon	Attended		Appointed
Privy Councillor	Earl of Westmeath	Did not attend
Privy Councillor	Thomas Stafford	Did not attend	Member		FRCSI; Medical Commissioner of the Local Government Board for Ireland; baronet.[18]
Privy Councillor	Laurence Ambrose Waldron	Resigned before the first meeting
County councillor	14 Representatives not selected	Boycotted	38 members, one per county and county borough; also several from urban district councils.

See also

• Parliament of Southern Ireland.

Sources

• Whyte, Nicholas (17 February 2002). "The Senate of Southern Ireland, 1921". Northern Ireland elections. Access Research Knowledge. Retrieved 8 March 2004.
• Report of the Proceedings of the Irish Convention. Command papers. Cd.9019. Dublin: HMSO. 1918. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
• "Government of Ireland Act, 1920" (PDF). Office of Public Sector Information. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
• "1922 Seanad Members". Members database. Oireachtas. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
• "Senate of Southern Ireland". Debrett's House of Commons. London: Dean. 1922. p. 278.

Notes

1. "Turtle Bunbury - Award-winning travel writer, historian and author based in Ireland". www.turtlebunbury.com.
2. The Irish Times (Saturday, July 9, 1921), page 4.
3. "Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers On Ireland". www.dippam.ac.uk.
4. "The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of Ireland - from the earliest times to the reign of Queen Victoria" by J. Roderick O'Flanagan, 1870 publication
5. "Enhanced British Parliamentary Papers On Ireland". www.dippam.ac.uk.
6. "Past Presidents". Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on 19 May 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2011.
7. The Irish Times (Thursday, July 14, 1921), page 4.
8. "The Senate of Southern Ireland, 1921". www.ark.ac.uk.
9. O'Day, Alan; Fleming, Neil (June 11, 2014). "Longman Handbook of Modern Irish History Since 1800". Routledge – via Google Books.
10. "Papers of George O'Callaghan-Westropp (1864–1944)". UCD. pp. IE UCDA P38. Retrieved 6 September 2013.
11. The Christian advocate. 95. Hunt & Eaton. 1920. p. 993.
12. "Remembrance Day". The Irish Law Times and Solicitors' Journal. 71: 323. 1937.
13. "The Incorporated Law Society of Ireland". The Irish Law Times and Solicitors' Journal. 55: 124. 1921.
14. B., J. W.; T. G. Moorehead (23 October 1937). "Obituary: Sir John William Moore". British Medical Journal. 2 (4007): 831–834. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.4007.831. PMC 2087590.
15. Crawley, Frank C.; H. C. Drury; William Pearson; W. Boxwell (February 1933). "In memoriam. Sir William Taylor (1871–1933)". Irish Journal of Medical Science. 8 (2): 86–90. doi:10.1007/BF02954546. ISSN 1863-4362.
16. Maume, Patrick (1999). The long gestation: Irish nationalist life 1891–1918. Gill & Macmillan. p. 101.
17. "Irish point of view on new tillage rules; Rt. Hon. Walter McMurrough Kavanagh Expresses Opinion With Regard to Compulsory Tillage Regulations in Ireland Farmer's Comments How Regulations Appear to an Irish Landowner". Christian Science Monitor. Boston. 28 March 1917. p. 3.
18. "Obituary: Sir Thomas Stafford, Bt., F.R.C.S.I". British Medical Journal. 1 (3881): 1102. 25 May 1935. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.3881.1102. PMC 2460354. PMID 20779108.