The Irish Anti-Partition League (APL) was a political organisation based in Northern Ireland which campaigned for a united Ireland from 1945 to 1958. The organisation aimed to unite Irish nationalists, filling the void left by nationalist groups that had become inactive in the decade prior. At its peak, the League had around 3,500 members.[1] There was significant internal debate about whether candidates should participate in the British Parliament. In the mid-1950s, most abstentionists had left the organisation. Dwindling membership meant that by 1956, no candidates were nominated for committee elections. The organisation remained inactive until 1958, when a final meeting was held to distribute remaining funds. The League was succeeded by National Unity in 1959.
The convention elected a standing committee. Conlon became its first Secretary and James McSparran its first chairman. It also collected more than £1,000 to begin campaigning activities.[2]
Establishment
Divisions appeared in the new organisation almost immediately. The Derry Journal, generally sympathetic to the nationalist cause, attacked two prominent members: T. J. Campbell for resigning as an MP in order to take up a position as a judge, and Cahir Healy for pledging to support the Ulster Unionist Party leadership of the parliament in their campaign to withhold some contributions to the HM Treasury in order to improve housing. A few months later, Thomas Maguire accused McSparran of rejecting a position as a judge solely because it was insufficiently well paid.[2]
Support came from a group of British Labour Party MPs, led by Hugh Delargy, who established the Friends of Ireland group to work with the APL. However, differences between the two remained.[3] In 1946, APL supporter Denis Ireland warned readers of the Belfast nationalist daily, Irish News, that their "friends" in the British Labour Party are "friends of Ireland only in order that the Irish can be turned into good little Socialists like themselves."[4] There was dismay when in the July 1945 election the Friends threw support behind a candidate of the Northern Ireland Labour Party for whom Irish unity was not an issue. In 1947, the APL and FOI did draw up a joint amendment to a Northern Ireland Bill calling for a full discussion on the governance of Northern Ireland.[2]
In 1946, Sean O'Gallagher was appointed as full-time organiser for the League, and by the end of the year, forty local Anti-Partition clubs linked to the League had been established. In July, Gerry Lennon, McAteer and McSparran spoke at a rally in Birmingham in July to launch a British section of the League.[2]
The League held its first annual convention at Dungannon on 11 April 1947 - 146 delegates attended, nominated by 63 branches, and McAteer was elected vice chairman. The following year, it opened an office in Belfast.[2] It faced its first electoral test at the 1948 Armagh by-election, nominating James O'Reilly. O'Reilly failed to gain the Unionist-held seat, but took 40.3% of the vote.
Relationship with the Republic of Ireland
The League organised a rally in Dublin on 25 January 1948, challenging Éamon de Valera to push the British Government on the question of partition. He was soon out of office, and embarked on a world tour speaking in favour of a united Ireland, which the League claimed as a success.[2]
The APL welcomed the passing of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948, and McSparran also welcomed the British response, the Ireland Act 1949, claiming that it proved all British parties were equally hostile to Ireland.[2]
Debates over abstentionism
A general election in Northern Ireland was called for 1949, and the League organised selection conventions for each constituency where there was a chance of an anti-partitionist victory.[2]
The selections were marked by fierce debate over whether the candidates should pledge to attend the Parliament, or to boycott it. The election was only moderately successful for the League. All the seats held by Nationalist MPs immediately before the election were again won by them.[2]
In May 1950, the APL conference voted down a motion calling for abstentionism. Conlon died soon afterwards, creating a by-election in his seat of South Armagh. The Irish Labour Party nominated Seamus McKearney. The League asked him to withdraw, but his agent, Harry Diamond, was an old opponent of the organisation and rejected the request.[2]
A local convention was held, which nominated Charles McGleenan, a prominent supporter of the failed motion. This was in clear opposition to party policy. Despite this, the executive did not intervene,[5] and McGleenan was able to easily defeat an Irish Labour Party candidate.[6] McGleenan did not take his seat, declaring his allegiance was only to the Republic of Ireland, but he campaigned alongside the Nationalist MPs and remained active in the League.[2]
Decline
By 1951, the League was in decline. It was short of funds, and there was reduced attendance at its meetings. The British section was also struggling, and motions to its conference called for it to prioritise recruitment and propaganda over attacks on other parties. It stood only one candidate at the 1951 general election.[2]
The party organised a march through Derry on St Patrick's Day 1951, displaying the flag of the Republic of Ireland. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) attempted to seize the flag, and several League members were arrested. A repeat was organised a year later, with a far larger turnout. This time, the RUC used violence to break up the march.[2]
Conventions were again organised to select candidates for the 1953 Northern Ireland general election. McAteer was selected for Foyle in place of Paddy Maxwell, who had abstentionist tendencies. Most constituencies chose MPs who pledged to attend the Parliament, but McGleenan was again selected in South Armagh, and delegates in Mid Tyrone chose Liam Kelly, a jailed republican. Sitting Nationalist MP Edward McCullagh stood against Kelly, in defiance of the convention, but was narrowly defeated. In Mid Londonderry, Nationalist Paddy Gormley beat the APL candidate. Gormley declared that the APL was now felt to be discredited.[2]
Despite the success of Kelly and McGleenan at the election, most of the abstentionists left the League. The executive was reorganised, McAteer becoming chairman, McSparran President, and Paddy McGill was appointed as the new Secretary.[2]
In late 1956, the committee announced their intention to resign. No candidates were nominated to replace them, and the League became moribund. Some local clubs became branches of the Nationalist Party, while the remnants of the British section became the United Irish Association. Frank Traynor became the Acting Secretary of the League, and he organised a final meeting in Belfast on 2 December 1958. McGill ordered McAteer to closely watch the meeting to ensure that it did not discuss policy, worrying that Traynor would try to cause trouble for the Nationalist Party. The meeting wound up the organisation and distributed its funds.[2]
In 1959, National Unity was founded by former APL members who called for the Nationalist Party to take a new, more active approach.[2]
Gerard Fitt, Baron Fitt was a politician from Northern Ireland. He was a founder and the first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a social democratic and Irish nationalist party.
The Nationalist Party was a term commonly used to describe a number of parliamentary political parties and constituency organisations supportive of Home Rule for Ireland from 1874 to 1922. It was also the name of the main Irish nationalist Nationalist Party in Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1978.
The by-election held in Fermanagh and South Tyrone on 9 April 1981 is considered by many to be the most significant by-election held in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It saw the first electoral victory for militant Irish republicanism, which the following year entered electoral politics in full force as Sinn Féin. The successful candidate was the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, who died twenty-six days later.
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.
The National Democratic Party (NDP) was an Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Féin is the name of an Irish political party founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It became a focus for various forms of Irish nationalism, especially Irish republicanism. After the Easter Rising in 1916, it grew in membership, with a reorganisation at its Ard Fheis in 1917. Its split in 1922 in response to the Anglo-Irish Treaty which led to the Irish Civil War and saw the origins of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two parties which have since dominated Irish politics. Another split in the remaining Sinn Féin organisation in the early years of the Troubles in 1970 led to the Sinn Féin of today, which is a republican, left-wing nationalist and secular party.
Irish republican legitimism denies the legitimacy of the political entities of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and posits that the pre-partition Irish Republic continues to exist. It is a more extreme form of Irish republicanism, which denotes rejection of all British rule in Ireland. The concept shapes aspects of, but is not synonymous with, abstentionism.
Events during the year 1945 in Northern Ireland.
The Nationalist Party was the continuation of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP), and was formed after the partition of Ireland, by the Northern Ireland-based members of the IPP.
Charles McGleenan was a farmer, Irish republican volunteer and political candidate.
James McSparran QC, was an Irish barrister and nationalist politician.
Malachy Conlon was a nationalist politician in Ireland.
Edward Vincent McCullagh was a nationalist politician and farmer in Northern Ireland.
The National League of the North (NLN) was an Irish nationalist organisation active in Northern Ireland.
National Unity was an Irish nationalist political study group in Northern Ireland.
The 1948 Armagh by-election was held on 5 March 1948, following the death of Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament William Allen.
The Friends of Ireland was a group of British Labour Party Members of Parliament in support of the ending of the partition of Ireland.
The 1951 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland was held on 25 October as part of the wider general election with 12 MPs elected in single-seat constituencies using first-past-the-post.
↑ Bob Purdie, "The Friends of Ireland", in: Tom Gallagher, Contemporary Irish Studies, pp.81-94
↑ Christopher Norton (2016). The politics of constitutional nationalism in Northern Ireland, 1932–70: Between grievance and reconciliation. Manchester University Press. p. 57-58
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