Laurence Ginnell 'The Member for Ireland'

by Mags Glennon

The past few years have seen a number of summer schools and commemoration events based on historical Republican figures, their political beliefs and actions being a hook on which to debate current strategies for advancing Republican ideas in Ireland. Indeed Fourthwrite was involved in such a venture last April, the Liam Mellows seminar in Arklow.

While attending one of the sessions it struck me that we can be quite selective in who and what we politically choose remember, or research and present to others. This has an obvious impact on the strategies and tactics we might adopt in the present day; what we do not know we cannot learn from. Such commemorations, understandably, tend to remember those who died in battle or in jail; the emotive nature of their deaths and our desire to show support for their ideals and actions are important. Rarely does a long life add to one's Republican prestige and death in bed is not so 'heroic'. Politically, too, changing circumstances can mean the relevance of particular aspects
of struggles decline, but the general principle of belief in armed resistance to British Rule is easier to relate to, to the point of fetish with some.


These thoughts overlapped somewhat with the decision of Sinn Féin to take up their offices in Westminster ; presented to us as some significant victory for Republicans. We are told they will never take their seats there. It's an immutable Sinn Féin principle, we are told. Never take seats in the British parliament, they say. Apparently, though, a British assembly on Irish soil is a different matter. The point of the whole abstention policy was reduced to a form of ?codding the Brits? by sailing close to the wind, rather than a principled Republican boycott of British political structures. At this time I mentioned Laurence Ginnell to a few political activists, that I was wondering what he would make of it all if he was around now. I got blank stares, clearly no one had the slightest clue who I was on about. I mentioned the class war for the land in the Midlands and Ginnell being, in effect, the first Sinn Féin MP. More complete incomprehension. My own fault I suppose, having been brought up on tales of the legendary actions of Ginnell I thought everyone knew of him. But Laurence Ginnell was more than just a local hero, his social campaigns and his uncompromising Republicanism have much relevance to us now.

So I went back to the books with a view to writing an article. I was upset to discover that 2002 marks the 150th anniversary of Ginnell's birth, a man now totally forgotten. No monument or plaque exists to him, no summer schools, no march with skirling pipes. His legacy is a grave down a remote back road and a sad little street in Mullingar called Ginnell Terrace.

Ginnell was born in Delvin in Westmeath in 1852, the immediate aftermath of the Famine, into a family of small tenant farmers. He was an intelligent child, managing to advance to obtaining a degree in Law and being particularly interested in land law as well as economics. He was the author of scholarly works on the Brehon Laws and 'The Doubtful Grant of Ireland', a book about
the illegality of Pope Adrian's Bull allowing for the Norman Invasion of Ireland. In a typical Ginnell gesture he personally presented the book to Pope Leo XIII. The years of his youth coincided with the Land War and he acted as private secretary to John Blake Dillon during the Plan of Campaign.
The Land War in Westmeath was fought with particular vigour, resulting in the assassination of a number of notorious landlords. The 1870s saw the county in such a state of 'outrage' that a special British House of Commons committee was appointed to investigate the activities of the Ribbonmen.


Ginnell did not become directly involved in politics until he was approaching 50 years old. He ran for election in 1901, for the parliamentary seat of North Westmeath, but was defeated. He won the seat by a large majority in 1906, holding this seat until his death in 1923.

In 1905 he was expelled from the Irish Parliamentary Party for the offence of asking to see the party accounts. He was a continual thorn in the side of the more conservative members of the IPP, raising controversial issues in parliament, refusing to obey the Speaker, and frequently being physically ejected from the chamber. He became known as 'The Member for Ireland' and
national and local newspapers of the period contain long reports of his views and speeches. He was described as 'a lonely figure, but ever a militant one, in the British Parliament'.

The Land Act of 1903 was one of the final British Acts to transfer ownership of the land from the landlords to tenant farmers. In the Midlands, however, it marked the start of a new and intense phase of the Land War. Here many of the large estates were rented by Irish 'graziers', sub tenants who raised
beef cattle, made large profits and provided little employment. In such areas there was no incentive for the landlords to sell up to landless tenants. The IPP leadership was disinclined to address the injustice of mass unemployment, poverty and land hunger as this 'grazier class' were Irish and catholic, the newly emerging rural political bourgeoisie whose support would be central to success of the IPP's conservative Home Rule policy.

Ginnell instituted a new Land campaign with the 'Hazel Policy' - named after the stick traditionally used while driving cattle. The principle was very simple - drive the cattle off the estates and abandon them miles away. The grazier found and returned them. They were driven again, and returned, and so the campaign continued. The aim was to make holding the land unprofitable.
Huge police resources were tied up in chasing lost cattle and elusive 'drivers'.
The older 'Boycott' tactics were also employed. The campaign was vociferously opposed by the great and the good, by the clergy and by most local councillors and MPs. It was supported by the landless tenants, by the agricultural labourers, by the rural working class and by such republicans as were active at the time. Ginnell's wife's family were old Fenians, which may have helped.

The Hazel campaign was based on direct local democracy with large public meetings being held at church gates in local areas and mass participation of men, women and children in the cattle driving policy. Local branches of the United Irish League co-ordinated the campaign. It's tactics moved the campaign for the land from earlier conspiratorial assassination actions,
into those of mass political involvement. Ginnell spoke at meetings throughout Meath, Westmeath and Offaly, when he told the young men that they had three duties; to join Sinn Féin, to learn organisation and drilling, and to keep the cattle on the move. Great care was taken to ensure that cattle were
not injured and violence was rarely if ever used, even in confrontations with the graziers. However the campaign led to dozens of arrests and jail sentences on petty charges such as illegal assembly and malicious damage.
At any given time there were warrants out for Ginnell - a sitting MP - and he served a number of short prison sentences, but he was effectively 'on the run' in this own constituency.

The cattle driving campaign was clearly understood by all to be one of class warfare and it provoked outraged editorials and articles in The Times of London. The strength and intensity of the campaign could not be maintained indefinitely. Some landlords sold up but the campaign continued sporadically
into the 1920s, when new Free State Land Acts were introduced. The last landlord's estates in Westmeath were not divided until the early 1980s.


Ginnell's political career continued as he involved himself in the cultural revival, demands for industry in Ireland and work on the development of training for national school teachers.

There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that the green flag with a golden harp that flew over the GPO in Easter Week was made from Ginnell's silk bedspread. He was certainly in Dublin in 1916, as he drove through Cabra he came under fire from an enthusiastic teenage volunteer who came close to injuring or killing the rebels' only parliamentary supporter. On 9th May1916 a debate on the Easter Rising took place in the Commons, with Ginnell roaring 'Murderers' across the floor at the Government benches. He persecuted parliament with frequent questions about the whereabouts and conditions
of imprisoned rebels, sought details of their trials and demanded information about British soldiers shooting civilians. He was beloved by the 1916 prisoners, visiting them in jails throughout England. The British feared he would assist in jail escapes and banned the visits. He tried signing the visitors book at Knutsford Jail as 'Labhras Mag Fionngaile' and was fined £100 for 'breaking the law', despite there being no law against using the Irish version of one's name. He refused to pay and was again jailed.

In July 1917 Ginnell finally resigned his seat in the House of Commons, taking this decision only after a large meeting of constituents voted in favour of his suggestion to do so. He became the first, and only, MP to move from constitutional nationalism to republican separatism. He has been described as 'the first Sinn Féin TD', but in fact at least three had been
elected in by-elections by the time he resigned the Commons seat. Soon afterwards he joined Sinn Féin and was elected joint Treasurer.

He was jailed again, in early 1918, for inciting cattle driving in Westmeath. At the end of the six month sentence he was re-arrested and interned in England until the end of the 1918. On release he demanded an apology from the governor for his 'wanton imprisonment'.

Elected to the First Dáil he was appointed Minister for Propaganda, a position he held for only 4 months until his arrest in May 1919 when he was jailed again, for unlawful assembly. Refusing to recognise the court, he spoke long and loud throughout the hearing and shouted 'Up the Republic' on getting
the usual six months. He was finally released from jail in 1920, solely because the British did to want him to die on their hands. Now approaching seventy years of age his health was totally shattered by imprisonment. The Dáil gave him tasks in raising the Republican Loan and he spent a short period in Argentina as a delegate of the Irish Republic - effectively an Irish ambassador. He returned to Ireland fearing the advent of partition, which he had spoken against as early as 1917, and determined to fight to
prevent it. He took the Republican side in the Civil War. He fought his last , as an Anti-Treaty candidate, in 1922 and was again elected in North Westmeath.

In September 1922, during the Civil War, an Irish Parliament was due to meet in Dublin. Republicans, many of whom would anyhow risk arrest, decided not go to the meeting - with one exception. Laurence Ginnell would attend to ask the awkward questions and so just one Republican entered Leinster House on September 9th. He put down several important motions, including one condemning the Deputies present who "having no authority to change policy, least of all from peace to war...did illegally usurp authority as a government and establish themselves as military dictators... did illegally at the bidding
of a foreign government begin civil war... did illegally by decree purport to suppress the Supreme Court of the Republic....and are steadily overthrowing Dáil Eireann and substituting their own personal government."

A Proclamation was read which stated that the parliament was being summoned on foot of the provisions in the Treaty of 1921. When those present were called to sign the roll as Deputies no mention was made of the Republican Oath. Ginnell questioned this, pointing out that he had been elected to Dail Eireann in May 1922, not to a parliament permitted by a foreign government in the Treaty. He wanted to know what had happened to the decree of the election in May 1922 and on whose authority this meeting was taking place.
Amid loud interruptions and heckling he said that if it was proved to him that this was Dáil Eireann he would sign, if not he would walk out. He was told that he could not ask the question as the Ceann Cómhairle had not been elected. When this formality was carried out he asked again, this time to be told that, although the Ceann Cómhairle had now been elected, since the Deputy had not signed the Roll he could not ask the question. He then asked "Will any member of the Six Counties be allowed to sit in the Dáil?" William Cosgrave now moved that Ginnell be removed from the House. Ginnell argued that they had no right to remove a member of Dáil Eireann. At this point the Free Staters forcibly dragged the seventy year old man out of the chamber. So ended Ginnell's parliamentary career, the usual familiar ejection from a British assembly.

In late 1922 he was sent to America to assist in co-ordinating Republican work there. He was reportedly very upset at developments in the Civil War, not helped by his declining health. In 1923 he wrote a book entitled "The Seventh year of the Republic - A Defence of Erskine Childers".

It was to be his final political act. He died in a Washington Hotel on April 17th 1923. His body was brought back to Ireland, amid national mourning, and he was buried in his native Delvin, Co Westmeath, where Mrs Pearse gave the oration. An Irish American newspaper reported "In an Irish grave lined with green moss and golden primroses gathered in his own Westmeath meadows, they lowered the body of Laurence Ginnell."

His friend, Major Kelly, prophesied that there would yet be a monument to his memory in O Connell Street in Dublin. On the 150th anniversary of his birth the likelihood of that is somewhat remote, there not even being a monument to him in his native village. It is doubtful if many local people under the age of sixty know who he was or his contribution to the social and political development of the Republic. Recently the national papers
ran an ad. listing a number of obscure early TDs that the Civil Service was seeking information about for some archive project. Listed among them was Laurence Ginnell. So even the Free State has forgotten "the first Sinn Féin MP".