Ninety years ago tomorrow, on July 10th, 1917, polling took place in the East-Clare by-election which marked the political debut of Éamon de Valera and hastened the demise of the Irish Parliamentary Party, writes Brendan Ó Cathaoir
The vacancy was caused by the death of Willie Redmond, who had represented East Clare at Westminster for 25 years. John Redmond, chairman of the Irish Party, impressed Sophie Raffalovich O'Brien "as abler, more intellectual than his brother, but infinitely less lovable".
Reports of the homecoming of republican prisoners coincided with accounts of the death of Maj Redmond, killed while leading his men at the battle of Messines Ridge. Sinn Féin put forward Cdt Éamon de Valera, the most senior survivor of the Rising.
Confronted by this challenge, and with John Redmond disabled by grief over the death of his brother, the Irish Party did virtually nothing. Local nationalists held an unofficial meeting at which they adopted Patrick Lynch, who in normal times would have stood a good chance of being elected. The party managers, although privately in favour of his candidacy, decided not to identify publicly with the contest.
Lynch was a member of the Munster Circuit and had been senior crown prosecutor for Kerry. During the election campaign a Sinn Féin wag was overheard describing him as a strong candidate: "He has defended one half of the murderers of Clare and is related to the other half". More accurately, Prof Tom O'Neill (de Valera's biographer) wrote that Lynch came from a respected Clare family with "a long local pedigree and a faultless national tradition".
Michael Collins, who took part in the campaign, expected a stiff fight. The RIC reported "great unrest due to the flooding of the county with Sinn Féiners, released rebel prisoners and canvassers for de Valera". Lynch supporters were drawn from the more staid classes, apart from truculent wives of Clare men serving in the Great War.
As polling day approached, excitement mounted in the constituency's first contested election for 22 years. It brought out the Volunteers in numbers and in uniform for the first time since the Rising. The Irish Times'scorrespondent observed that the majority of voters (under a restricted franchise) seemed to be old men, many of whom were accompanied by sons sporting Sinn Féin colours. The New York Timesnoted "the presence of an almost unprecedented number of young men in the county", owing to the wartime restrictions on emigration.
When de Valera won by 5,010 votes to 2,035, The Irish Timescommented that the East Clare election marked the rise of a new party, "which must henceforth be an important, if not a controlling factor in nationalist politics". The Sinn Féin successes in North Roscommon and South Longford were remarkable, but nobody could have deduced from them the "crushing character" of de Valera's victory. Judge Daniel Cohalan, Clan na Gael, New York, said: "Taken with other elections held recently, it means the end of the constitutional movement."
The viceroy, Lord Wimborne, briefed the British cabinet: "The Sinn Féin victory in East Clare is a fact of cardinal significance
. . . In a remarkably well-conducted political contest, sustained by excellent candidates on both sides, the electors on a singularly frank issue of self-government within the empire versus an independent Irish republic, have overwhelmingly pronounced for the latter." Lynch wrote to the chief secretary, Henry Edward Duke, warning against the extension of conscription to Ireland. The defeated candidate wrote also to Redmond, insisting that he had contested the seat as an Irish Party candidate, and seeking help with election expenses.
Lynch joined Sinn Féin within a year. During the independence struggle, this leading member of the Irish bar "saved many from the hangman's noose". It is not clear why he took the anti-Treaty side in 1922. In the previous tragic split he had identified with the Parnellites. Evidently he was impressed by imprisoned republicans. Be that as it may, he now followed de Valera, who would appoint him attorney general of the Irish Free State. His youngest brother, James, on the other hand, was state solicitor for Clare under the Cumann na nGaedheal government.
Paddy Lynch became a King's Inns bencher in 1925; Fianna Fáil senator, 1934-36; attorney general in 1936 and reappointed under the new Constitution, 1937-40. A generous, honourable man, he is said to have refused a judgeship three times: from the British government on account of the 1916 executions; from the Free State because of the Civil War executions; and from de Valera due to his treatment of IRA prisoners during the Emergency.
In The Old Munster Circuit, Maurice Healy wrote that had he been asked to cite an example of an honest man, "the first name that would have come to my lips would have been that of Paddy Lynch. . . Always a moderate nationalist, when the gallant Willie Redmond gave his life for his beliefs, Paddy thought it would be an indecent thing if the seat of that paladin amongst Irishmen were to be abandoned without a struggle to those who had disagreed with his views."