The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or (inaccurately) as the Fourth Home Rule Act and informally known as the Partition Act. The Act was intended to partition Ireland into two self-governing polities: the six north-eastern counties were to form "Northern Ireland", while the larger part of the country was to form "Southern Ireland". Both territories were to remain part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and provision was made for their future reunification through a Council of Ireland. The Act was passed by the British Parliament in November 1920, received royal assent in December and came into force on 3 May 1921.
Southern Ireland was the larger of the two parts of Ireland that were created when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland or about five-sixths of the area of the island, whilst the remaining six counties, which occupied most of Ulster in the north of the island, formed Northern Ireland. Southern Ireland included County Donegal, despite it being the largest county in Ulster and the most northerly county in all of Ireland.
The Irish component of the 1918 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 modern Irish history, seeing the overwhelming defeat of the moderate nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), which had dominated the Irish political landscape since the 1880s, and a landslide victory for the radical Sinn Féin party. Sinn Féin had never previously stood in a general election, but had won six seats in by-elections in 1917–1918. The party had vowed in its manifesto to establish an independent Irish Republic. In Ulster, however, the Unionist Party was the most successful party.
The Parliament of Southern Ireland was a Home Rule legislature established by the British Government during the Irish War of Independence under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It was designed to legislate for Southern Ireland, a political entity which was created by the British Government to solve the issue of rising Irish nationalism and the issue of partitionism, while retaining the whole of Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.
Dáil Éireann, also called the Revolutionary Dáil, was the revolutionary, unicameral parliament of the Irish Republic from 1919 to 1922. The Dáil was first formed on 21 January 1919 in Dublin by 69 Sinn Féin MPs elected in the 1918 United Kingdom general election, who had won 73 seats of the 105 seats in Ireland, with four party candidates elected for two constituencies. Their manifesto refused to recognise the British parliament at Westminster and instead established an independent legislature in Dublin. The convention of the First Dáil coincided with the beginning of the War of Independence.
East Antrim is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. It is currently represented by Sammy Wilson of the Democratic Unionist Party.
The 1921 Northern Ireland general election was held on Tuesday, 24 May 1921. It was the first election to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Ulster Unionist Party members won two-thirds of votes cast and more than three-quarters of the seats in the assembly. Sinn Féin in particular was shocked at the scale of the Unionist victory, having spent considerable resources on the campaign, and had expected to win between 1/3 and 1/2 of the seats. Sinn Féin and Nationalist Party candidates were successful in the joint County Tyrone/Fermanagh constituency with 54.71 percent of the vote. The election was conducted using the single transferable vote system.
The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), also known as the Irish Unionist Party, Irish Unionists or simply the Unionists, was a unionist political party founded in Ireland in 1891 from a merger of the Irish Conservative Party and the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (ILPU) to oppose plans for home rule for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The party was led for much of its existence by Colonel Edward James Saunderson and later by St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton. In total, eighty-six members of the House of Lords affiliated themselves with the Irish Unionist Alliance, although its broader membership among Irish voters outside Ulster was relatively small.
There were two elections in Ireland on 24 May 1921, following the establishment of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. New constituencies were established for both parliaments. A resolution of Dáil Éireann on 10 May 1921 held that these elections were to be regarded as elections to Dáil Éireann and that all those returned at these elections be regarded as members of Dáil Éireann. According to this theory of Irish republicanism, these elections provided the membership of the Second Dáil. The Second Dáil lasted 297 days.
Abstentionism is the political practice of standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in the election itself. Abstentionism has been used by Irish republican political movements in the United Kingdom and Ireland since the early 19th century. It was also used by Hungarian and Czech nationalists in the Austrian Imperial Council in the 1860s.
North Kilkenny was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) from 1885 to 1922.
South Dublin, a division of County Dublin, was a county constituency in Ireland from 1885 to 1922. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, using the first past the post voting system.
South Fermanagh was a UK Parliament constituency in Ireland.
Falls, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.
St Anne's, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.
North East Tyrone was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland. From 1918 to 1922 it returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first-past-the-post voting system.
The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on recommendations as to the best manner and means this goal could be achieved. It was a response to the dramatically altered Irish political climate after the 1916 rebellion and was proposed by David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in May 1917 to John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, announcing that "Ireland should try her hand at hammering out an instrument of government for her own people".
The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in London on 6 December 1921 and Dáil Éireann voted to approve the treaty on 7 January 1922, following a debate through late December 1921 and into January 1922. The vote was 64 in favour, 57 against, with the Ceann Comhairle and 3 others not voting. The Sinn Féin party split into opposing sides in the aftermath of the Treaty vote, which led to the Irish Civil War from June 1922 to May 1923.
Fermanagh and Tyrone was a county constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1929. It returned eight MPs, using proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.
Elections were held in January and June 1920 for the various county and district councils of Ireland. The elections were organised by the Dublin Castle administration under the law of the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK), and held while the Irish War of Independence was pitting UK forces against those of the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1919 by the First Dáil. Elections were held in two stages: borough and urban district councils in January; and county and rural district councils in June. Sinn Féin, which had established the First Dáil, won control of many of the councils, which subsequently broke contact with Dublin Castle's Local Government Board for Ireland and instead recognised the republican Department of Local Government. The election results provide historians with a barometer of public opinion in what would be the last elections administered on an all-island basis: the Government of Ireland Act 1920 passed at the end of the year effected the partition of Ireland from 1921, though the elections for the two home rule Parliaments envisaged by it were held on the same day; no further elections would be held simultaneously across the island of Ireland until 1979, when representatives of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to the European Parliament were elected. The next local elections were held in 1924 in Northern Ireland and in 1925 in the Irish Free State.
