Clann na Poblachta
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Clann na Poblachta | |
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Clann na Poblachta (Irish:
Foundation
Clann na Poblachta was officially launched on 6 July 1946 in Barry's Hotel in Dublin.
The party was influenced by
Irish social and health services were both starved of money and struggling with a social system where the Catholic Church's hostility to state action obstructed progress. TB was a scourge and Ireland lagged far behind the rest of Western Europe in tackling it. Furthermore, there was no free secondary education (a situation that continued into the 1960s). Under-development and poor economic performance drove high levels of emigration and rural depopulation.
Clann na Poblachta was formed at a time during a period of turmoil in Irish politics. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the two major political parties, were weak. Fine Gael was in disarray because of their rival's seemingly hegemonic dominance and because of a perceived failure to be able to offer anything to disillusioned Fianna Fáil supporters. Fianna Fáil was visibly losing support because of the failure of the party's program to end mass unemployment, poverty and emigration. The Labour Party had bitterly split in 1944 over personal differences between William O'Brien and James Larkin, while Clann na Talmhan was regarded as being too specialist and too greatly concerned with the needs of farmers.
Electoral success
In October 1947, Clann na Poblachta won two by-elections (in
Clann had stood on a platform of "get them out"; hence, a coalition with Fianna Fáil was clearly not an option. However, the republicans in Clann were reluctant to serve in a government led by Fine Gael. They were particularly opposed to a government headed by Fine Gael leader Richard Mulcahy, who had been a Free State general during the Civil War. At the suggestion of William Norton, the Labour leader, it was agreed that no party leader would be Taoiseach. John A. Costello, who had served as Attorney-General to Cumann na nGaedheal governments in the 1920s and 1930s, became Fine Gael's choice for Taoiseach. Norton became Tánaiste, while MacBride was appointed as Minister for External Affairs. Clann was an uneasy coalition of socialists and republicans; to placate the left wing, MacBride named Noël Browne for appointment as Minister for Health. However, many of the party's republicans remained unreconciled to serving with Fine Gael, and the very act of joining the government weakened the party.
On taking office MacBride burnished the party's republican anti-partitionist credentials by having Costello nominate the northern Protestant Denis Ireland to Seanad Éireann.[6] Ireland was the first member of the Oireachtas to be resident in Northern Ireland.
In government
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Foreign affairs
As Minister for External Affairs and a strong republican, MacBride was seen as instrumental in the repeal of the
MacBride regarded Ireland as a republic in any case (in much the same way as de Valera did) and saw the repeal of the Act as merely removing the last vestiges of the British connection. He was however deeply angry that Costello had stolen his idea, and refused to attend the official ceremony marking the inauguration of the Republic of Ireland.
The Government and opposition jointly mounted what they called the "Anti-Partition Campaign', arguing the opinion that partition was the only obstacle preventing a united Ireland. At foreign conferences, Irish delegates stated their cause for the ending of partition. This campaign had no effect whatsoever on the unionist government in Northern Ireland.
MacBride was Minister of External Affairs when the
As Minister for External Affairs, MacBride declined the offer of Ireland joining
MacBride also argued for the "return of sterling assets" to Ireland: essentially a decoupling of the Irish pound from the Pound sterling by selling British gilts and investing the money in domestic enterprise. Officials in the Irish Department of Finance, who had an excellent relationship with the British Treasury and thought a decoupling would isolate Ireland and discourage investment, resisted the policy. The matter came to a head at the time of the 1949 devaluation of sterling. Despite two government meetings to discuss decoupling, it was decided to retain the sterling link—which remained until 1979.
Public health policies and the anti-tuberculosis campaign
Noël Browne proved highly controversial as Minister for Health. A medical doctor, he became famous for two policies. One of these was a successful anti-tuberculosis (TB) campaign. Free mass X-rays were introduced to identify TB sufferers, who were given free hospital treatment. New drugs were also introduced to fight the disease. Though Browne made a significant contribution to the campaign, it had actually originated with Conn Ward, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health in de Valera's government; it was Ward's preparatory work and Browne's practical implementation that produced the acclaimed scheme that practically wiped out TB in Ireland.
Mother and child scheme
Browne's second initiative was much more controversial. In 1950, Browne tried to put the parts of the Health Act 1947 into effect. This Act would give free health care to all mothers and children up to the age of sixteen, regardless of income. However, the
Decline and dissolution
In 1951 the coalition faced increasing pressure to remain afloat and so an election was called. Clann na Poblachta was reduced to just two seats. Noel Browne and Jack McQuillan, both of whom were elected as independents, supported de Valera's minority government. In 1954 another general election was called and the Second Inter-Party Government took office, again under Costello as Taoiseach. Although Clann na Poblachta reached a confidence and supply agreement with the government, it did not join it.
In keeping with the republican views of many of its key supporters, Clann had throughout maintained close links with republicans in Northern Ireland who espoused similar views, accepting the 1937 Constitution and the government operating under it as legitimate in the Republic of Ireland (differing from Sinn Féin on this issue) but keeping open the option of armed struggle in Northern Ireland. The most prominent link of this kind was between the Clann and Liam Kelly and his Fianna Uladh organisation, even though Kelly and the Fianna Uladh's armed wing (Saor Uladh) were engaged in a military campaign in Northern Ireland. In 1954 the Clann made Kelly's election to Seanad Éireann (courtesy of Fine Gael councillors' votes) a condition for supporting the Second Inter-Party Government. Kelly had been imprisoned at the time for making a seditious speech.[9]
The Government's increasingly firm action against the IRA, which had just launched the
At the 1957 election MacBride lost his seat in Dáil Éireann, and his failure to secure a seat in two subsequent by-elections ended his political career.[9] The party contested the 1961 general election but only one candidate was elected to the Dáil. John Tully, elected for Cavan, was the only Clann na Poblachta TD to emerge from the 1965 general election.
The party entered talks with the Labour Party about a possible merger, but these ended in failure because the participants could not agree on the focus of any merged party, or whether Sinn Féin or the National Progressive Democrats could be included. At the party Ard Fheis on 10 July 1965, Clann na Poblachta voted to dissolve itself.[9]
General election results
Election | Seats won | ± | Position | First Pref votes | % | Government | Leader |
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1948 | 10 / 147
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10 | 4th | 174,823 | 13.2% | Coalition (FG-LP-CnP-CnT-NLP) | Seán MacBride |
1951 | 2 / 147
|
8 | 5th | 54,210 | 4.1% | Opposition | Seán MacBride |
1954 | 3 / 147
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1 | 5th | 41,249 | 3.1% | Opposition | Seán MacBride |
1957 | 1 / 147
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2 | 6th | 20,632 | 1.7% | Opposition | Seán MacBride |
1961 | 1 / 144
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5th | 13,170 | 1.1% | Opposition | Seán MacBride | |
1965 | 1 / 144
|
4th | 9,427 | 0.8% | Opposition | Seán MacBride |
See also
Footnotes
- ^ At the time, Ireland had a king (in statute but not constitutional law) and a president. The question often arose as to which one if either was the actual Irish head of state. As a key defining role of a head of state is their diplomatic representation role (that is, signing treaties or having them signed in his or her name, accrediting ambassadors and having ambassadors accredited to them) and this role was explicitly denied to the President between 1937 and 1949, it is clear that in this respect the president was not the head of state. Because that role was, under the External Relations Act, granted to the King, the international community regarded King George VI as Irish head of state until 1949. John A. Costello in a speech to Seanad Éireann in effect confirmed that the king, not the President was head of state until April 1949.
References
- ISBN 9780810870918.
- ^ Abedi, Amir (2004), Anti-Political Establishment Parties: A Comparative Analysis, London: Routledge
- ^ Keane, Elizabeth. Sean MacBride – a Life. p. 73.
- ^ Keane, Elizabeth. Sean MacBride – a Life. pp. 74–75.
- ISSN 0332-0286.
- ^ "Denis Ireland". Oireachtas Members Database. Archived from the original on 7 November 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2013.
- ^ Jordan (1993). p. 115.
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(help) - ^ "Personal Statement by a Deputy – Dáil Éireann (13th Dáil)". Houses of the Oireachtas. 12 April 1951. Retrieved 23 March 2022.
- ^ a b c Keane, Elizabeth. Sean MacBride – a Life. p. 211.
Bibliography
- MacDermott, Eithne (1998). Clann Na Poblachta. Cork University Press. ISBN 1-85918-187-2.