Ireland’s Unique Electoral Experiment: The Senate Election of 1925

Abstract

The 1925 election to the Irish senate was unique in the history of electoral systems: the whole territory of the Irish Free State was used as a single, nation‐wide constituency for the election of 19 senators, by means of the single transferable vote system of proportional representation, from a general electorate. The procedure used was widely seen at the time as a failure, and the experiment was never repeated. This article, based on a reconstruction of the results of the election, revisits two important issues. First, it reassesses the character of the mechanism used in this election, and concludes that its critics overstated their case. Second, it evaluates the election against one of its originally declared yardsticks: its capacity to ensure that Ireland’s small ex‐unionist (and largely Protestant) minority would have a powerful voice in the second chamber. Although the election was not a success in this second respect (a failure that was in part due to the nomination process), it nevertheless offers important and original evidence of the extent to which party hegemony may be challenged in elections of this kind by powerful sectional and regional interests.