NINETY YEARS ago this week when the first Dáil met in the Mansion House, its members were faced with challenging circumstances. Sinn Féin contested the 1918 Westminster general election on a pledge to withdraw its elected MPs from the British parliament and to establish an Irish parliament in Dublin.
When the first Dáil convened, just 27 of the 73 Sinn Féin elected members were present. Most of the rest were in prison. In addition, Sinn Féin greatly lacked parliamentary experience with only two of its deputies having sat in Westminster. Compensating factors, however, were its relative youth – three out of four of its deputies were under 45 years of age – and its blend of idealism, energy and ambition.
Taoiseach Brian Cowen noted on Tuesday at the commemoration of the anniversary of that historic event that from that day “foreign rule in Ireland was relieved of any claim to democratic legitimacy”. At its first meeting on January 21st, 1919, the Dáil approved a Declaration of Independence stating that “the elected representatives of the Irish people alone have power to make laws binding on the people of Ireland, and that the Irish parliament is the only parliament to which that people will give its allegiance”. It adopted a democratic programme setting out its social and economic objectives, approved a “message to the free nations of the world” and appointed delegates to the Paris Peace Conference to present Ireland’s case for recognition as an independent State – but without subsequent success.
As Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny remarked of the time: “It was easy to be sceptical. The new assembly had no legal standing or international recognitions, no building of its own, no government apparatus to direct or carry out its wishes”. And yet the first Dáil “did establish the authentic credentials of modern Irish democracy”.
Ireland today is one of the world’s oldest continuous democracies. In the words of Ceann Comhairle John O’Donoghue, the Irish parliament has remained free, independent, and democratic for 90 years. Where other countries succumbed to dictatorship and totalitarianism, Ireland avoided that experience.
But our parliamentary democracy faces continuing and changing challenges. One of them is declining voter turnout in national elections. This is most evident among the young and the socially disadvantaged. It represents a clear sign of voter alienation which the Oireachtas must address. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. It is also the price of parliamentary democracy.