Local Elections for
City and Town councils
Introduction from Chronology
Local elections for
city and town councils. Out of the 206 councils elected through-out Ireland,
172 had Republican majorities.
More Detail
British government had brought in
proportional representation (for Ireland only) in the hope it would dilute
support for Sinn Féin and boost support for other parties – it did to some
extent (compared to the December 1918 election) as shown by the following
overall results: There were some 1,816
seats up for election - Sinn Féin won 550 seats, Labour 394, Unionists 355, Nationalists 238,
Independents 161 and municipal reformers 108.
First preference vote was closer; Sinn Féin – 87,311; Unionists –
85,932; Nationalists – 47,102; Labour – 57,623 and Independents – 44,273. However, because Labour was mostly in
partnership with Sinn Féin, they came to dominate most councils and
corporations. Nine out of eleven
corporations were in SF/Labour hands as were 62 out of 99 urban councils.
Also, Sinn Féin had a more
resounding victory in the local elections held for county councils in June 1920
(when the electorate was three times larger) – see Jun-12-20/1.
In the north of Ireland, while
the Unionists retained control of 24 townships (while the Nationalists and Sinn
Féin won control of 21 townships), Sinn Féin wins control of 10 out of 12
cities (only Derry City – where they held power with the nationalists - and
Belfast held by the Unionists) not in their hands.
For the first time, nationalists
hold power in Derry City – 21 seats (made up 11 Nationalist & 10 Sinn Féin)
as opposed to 19 for the unionists. Hugh C. O’Doherty
is elected mayor of Londonderry Corporation.
(The first Catholic to be mayor of Derry since 1688.) In Belfast, the unionists won 37 of the 60
seats, the Nationalist and Sinn Féin won five seats each and 12 or 13 seats
were won by Labour.
In Ulster, the Unionists got
52.6%, Labour got 20.9%, Nationalists got 14.9% and Sinn Féin got 8.9%. Mitchell notes that “if Unionism was
shown not to be monolithic in the six counties of Ulster, the Sinn Féin poll
indicated that over a two-year period the party had failed to make any
substantial progress there” (Mitchell (1995), pg
124).
Phoenix says that the lack of
unity among nationalists and Sinn Féin in Ulster was to detract from the
evolution of an effective policy against partition in the crucial months
ahead.
Example of a Local Election Result
Castlebar UDC – 4 Sinn Féin; 1 Independent Sinn Féin; 3 Labour; 2 Independents and 1 Unionist