Irish Voters Research Articles

Twenty years after the Wall: geographical imaginaries of ‘Europe’ during European Union enlargement

Cultural geography is increasingly intersecting with critical and popular geopolitics analyse how sociocultural constructions of space and place arise within, and play a role in shaping, geopolitical processes (e.g., Mitchell 2000; Dodds 2005; Dittmer and Spears 2009). The current round of the reshaping of as an economic, political, social, institutional and imagined entity provides a dynamic context in which further explore these links. As Delanty (1995, pp. 3-4) suggested, 'Europe' has been constituted as a frame of reference for the formation of identities and new geo-political realities, but while it is deployed as a universalising it is also the perpetual threat of fragmentation from forces within European society. Similarly, European borders and identities and the very idea of 'Europe' itself are perpetually under renegotiation and contestation (e.g., Derrida 1994; Wolff 1996; Todorova 1997; Passi 2001; Kuus 2004; Kuus 2006; Habermas :2006). As Paasi (2001, p. 7) suggests, the challenge for geography is to reflect how regions and places come together and what kind of spatial imaginaries are involved in this process. Spatial or geographical 'imaginaries' are representations of place and space that play a role in structuring people's understanding of the world and which, in complex ways, influence people's actions. As an extensive literature in cultural geography has demonstrated, these representations or constructions of the world are also closely intertwined with the material world and play a role in the ordering and bordering of space and the construction of normative visions of how space 'should be.' Thus the papers in this theme issue focus on 'Europe' as a collectively imagined and contested representation which has important implications for how is constructed, regulated and re-defined as a material entity. Similar topics have been the focus of other thematic issues in human geography journals. See, for example, Area 2005, 37(4); Geopolitics 2005, 10(3); Eurasian Geography and Economics 2006, 47(6). All of these thematic issues were concerned, more or less directly, with unpacking the terms of reference for a geography of Europe (McNeil 2004, p. 353). However, the enlargement of the European Union (EU) in 2004 and 2007 incorporate 10 formerly state-socialist countries from 'Eastern Europe' has introduced a whole new set of geographies. The papers in this thematic issue emphasize the sociocultural dimensions of these new geographies through the lenses of culture and political economy. Specifically, the EU enlargement has produced new sets of political, economic and institutional arrangements which have been much discussed. However, intertwined with these are new geographical imaginaries of 'Europe' which have an important role play in shaping the 'New Europe' (the term adopted by the popular as well as academic press identify the dynamic economic, cultural and social changes that are affecting the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe). Political elites attempt legitimize the institutional and economic changes brought by the European integration through the shaping of a political community with a collective identity with which citizens can identify. However, these elite projects are always contested, and are particularly challenged during the 'eastward' expansion of the EU. Other powerful processes and events are also at play here, including the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The context of twenty years after provides an opportunity for reflection on two decades of actually existing transition (Altvater 1993). Further, attempts establish a European Constitution were rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, and the Lisbon Treaty by Irish voters in 2008, throwing into question the nature of the EU and 'Europe'. The European integration process has been further challenged by the good results obtained by Eurosceptic political parties at the 2009 European Parliament elections, fuelled by a global economic crisis that evidences the weaknesses of the neoliberal project at the heart of the EU. …

Long wait for EU reform ends

The approval of the Lisbon Treaty by Irish voters has cleared the way for reforms of the European Union, including the establishment of the new post of EU president and an expansion of the role of the foreign-policy chief. The changes will have a significant effect on the EU's role in matters of security and defence.

A mixture of experts model for rank data with applications in election studies

A voting bloc is defined to be a group of voters who have similar voting preferences. The cleavage of the Irish electorate into voting blocs is of interest. Irish elections employ a “single transferable vote” electoral system; under this system voters rank some or all of the electoral candidates in order of preference. These rank votes provide a rich source of preference information from which inferences about the composition of the electorate may be drawn. Additionally, the influence of social factors or covariates on the electorate composition is of interest. A mixture of experts model is a mixture model in which the model parameters are functions of covariates. A mixture of experts model for rank data is developed to provide a model-based method to cluster Irish voters into voting blocs, to examine the influence of social factors on this clustering and to examine the characteristic preferences of the voting blocs. The Benter model for rank data is employed as the family of component densities within the mixture of experts model; generalized linear model theory is employed to model the influence of covariates on the mixing proportions. Model fitting is achieved via a hybrid of the EM and MM algorithms. An example of the methodology is illustrated by examining an Irish presidential election. The existence of voting blocs in the electorate is established and it is determined that age and government satisfaction levels are important factors in influencing voting in this election.

Analysing Structures of Party Preference in Electronic Voting Data

In the 2002 Irish general election, 138,011 voters cast their ballots electronically. Election officials published full sets of electronic ballots, including candidate rankings. This article analyses these unique electronic voting data. The intention is to explore a range of features of Irish voting behaviour and draw more general inferences about the structure of voter preferences. The results reveal that most voters rank very few candidates; that the level of ‘pure’ party voting is relatively low; that many Irish voters seem in practice to use the single transferable vote electoral system as a form of ‘disapproval’ voting; and that the pattern of rankings recorded dramatically underlines the traditional ‘Fianna Fáil versus the rest’ characterization of Irish party politics.

The geography of Irish voter turnout: A case study of the 2002 general election

Abstract ‘Turnout’ is a key measure of participation in the democratic process. Specifically, it measures the proportion of eligible voters that turns out to vote on election day. Low (or declining) turnout rates are a cause of concern and are often taken as a measure of disaffection with the political decision‐making process. In Ireland, turnout in the 2002 general election confirmed a downward trend in voter participation and represented the lowest turnout since the foundation of the State. However, turnout rates vary markedly across the State. Until recently, it was not possible to examine turnout at a sufficiently detailed geographical scale to allow systematic analysis of the potential causes of such variations. This paper reports on a joint project, involving the Geary Institute, UCD and the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA), NUI Maynooth, that is undertaking a comprehensive analysis of turnout in the 2002 general election at the lowest possible level of aggregation. Here, a cartographic description and introductory analysis is presented that includes the first ever electoral‐district‐level map of turnout. The resulting geographical patterns are generally coherent and explicable and provide important pointers for future research. In an unanticipated finding, this map shows that the phenomenon of low turnout in urban areas occurs beyond the main cities and their suburbanised hinterlands and shows up as a characteristic of most provincial towns.

Ireland: historical echoes, contemporary politics

* List of Acronyms * Preface * Introduction * Three Irelands Many Interpretations * Ireland: The Place * The Chapters to Come * 1. The Question of Irish History: From the Celts to O'Connell * The Early Peoples * The Norman Conquest * The Shipwreck of the Old Order * The Penal Laws * The Protestant Nation * 1798 * Union * Daniel O'Connell * Notes * 2. From the Famine to the Rising * The Famine * The Famine's Legacy * The Struggle for Home Rule * The Rise of Irish Nationalism * The Easter Rising of 1916 * Notes * 3. From Guerrilla War to Independence * The Rise of Sinn Fein * The Anglo-Irish War and the Treaty * The Free State * De Valera's Dream * The Emergency and After * Notes * 4. Doors Opening and Closing: Economy, Education, and the Irish Language * Introduction * The Insulated Economy * The Whitaker Plan and the Planning Period, 1959-1972 * Entry into the European Union, 1973-1987 * The Emergence of the Celtic Tiger, 1987-1997 * Explaining Ireland's Economic Development * Education: The Traditional System * Reform and Renewal * The Irish Language * Notes * 5. Mixed Messages: The Catholic Church and the Media * The Catholic Church * The Media * Censorship * Notes * 6. Veneration Versus Rights: The Role of Irish Women * The Suffrage Movement * Venerated But Excluded * The Search for Equality * Controversial Issues in the 1980s * Women's Status in the 1990s * Notes * 7. Catholic State or Catholic Nation: Political Culture, Constitution, and Political Structure * Political Culture * Constitutional Foundations * The Structure of Government * Not Corporatism But Neo-Corporatist Policy Making * The Impact of Europe * Irish Democracy * Notes * 8. The Chosen Few: Parties, Pressure Groups, and Policy * The Irish Voter * Political Parties * Bases of the Irish Party System * Pressure Groups * Policy Issues: The Environment * Social Problems and Issues * Notes * 9. Northern Ireland: The Gordian Knot Tied * Introduction * The Creation of Northern Ireland * Character of the Conflict * Discrimination and Separation * British Policy in Ulster, 1922-1968 * The United States and Northern Ireland, 1922-1968 * Years of Violence, 1968-1972 * British Policy in Ulster, 1968-1972 * The United States and Northern Ireland, 1968-1972 * Northern Ireland, 1972-1981 * British Policy in Ulster, 1972-1981 * The United States and Northern Ireland, 1972-1981 * Notes * 10. Northern Ireland: The Gordian Knot Untied? * Developments in Northern Ireland, 1981-1992 * British Policy, 1981-1992 * The United States and Northern Ireland, 1981-1992 * External influences on Northern Ireland * The Peace Process, the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, and the Prizes of Peace * Explaining the Conflict Explaining the Peace * Notes * 11. Ireland in the World : Policy, People, and the Arts * Irish Foreign Policy * The European Union * People * Irish America * The Arts * Conclusion * Notes * Selected Bibliography * Index

Northern Irish Voters and the British–Irish Agreement: Foundations of a Stable Consociational Settlement?

Northern Irish politics is characterised by two distinct and polarised Nationalist and Unionist ethno-national blocs, and marked clearly by religious origin or aliation. There is also a third, signi®cantly smaller, `other' quasi-bloc, that is more heterogeneous in nature, and lacks the ethno-national solidity of the two primary blocs. As is well known, the two primary blocs, their political representatives, and those who term themselves their military or paramilitary representatives, have remained at war, or at least at loggerheads, for many years. The British±Irish (or Good Friday) Agreement of April 1998 has been widely, and correctly, hailed as a major political breakthrough with reasonable prospects of transcending previous failed attempts to resolve an apparently intractable constitutional, party political and military stalemate. The Assembly established by the Agreement is based upon a consociational model of political regulation. A central plank of consociation is the belief that a legitimate government and governability cannot be obtained in divided territories without the endorsement of (most of) each of the main communities within the relevant region. Simple overall majority support is not sucient for stable and legitimate government in such regions; indeed consociational arrangements, in principle, are designed to work against the logic of simple majoritarianism in the electorate, the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and the bureaucracy. Consociational institutions therefore need to adopt procedures that rely on, create and sometimes formalise cross-community consensus. In short, to be workable, consociational institutions appear to require concurrent majorities. The British±Irish (or Good Friday) Agreement was put to a referendum in both parts of Ireland. There were concurrent majorities across the two territories, with a 95 per cent endorsement in the Republic of Ireland, and a 71 per cent endorsement in Northern Ireland. But were there concurrent majorities within Northern Ireland? Most local voters, most parties, and a majority of Catholic and Protestants endorsed the Agreement, but a substantial number of Unionists rejected itÐa bare majority of Unionists if we exclude supporters of the Alliance Party from the Unionist bloc. This antiAgreement segment of the Unionist bloc presents a continued threat to the viability of the Assembly, and indeed to the overall Agreement: it can constantly challenge whether the Agreement, and its implementation, has the support of a majority of Unionists, as indicated most recently in the June 1999 European Parliamentary elections. The Agreement institutionalises two types of `key' decision-making within the new Assembly. One is an explicit operationalisation of the logic of concurrent majoritarianism. All Assembly members must register as Nationalist, Unionist or `other'. Under the `parallel consent' procedure a key decision must

Irish Voters Decide: Voting Behaviour in Elections and Referendums since 1918Richard Sinnott Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, pp. xvi, 339

Irish Voters Decide: Voting Behaviour in Elections and Referendums since 1918Richard Sinnott Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995, pp. xvi, 339

Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland

In 1986 a national opinion poll indicated that over half of Irish voters favored an upcoming referendum to remove the constitutional ban on divorce. Yet, after nine weeks of vigorous debate during which forces on both sides of the issue presented their cases to the public, the amendment was defeated.In Debating Divorce, Michele Dillon uses the divorce referendum debate in Ireland as a base from which to explore the long-standing sociological preoccupation with how societies decide questions of values. Focusing on culture and moral conflict, she examines the stances adopted by the major players in the debate: the government and the political parties, the Catholic church, women, the print and broadcast media, and activists, on both sides.Although the issues of moral conflict that Dillon discusses have special relevance in demarcating Irish cultural values, they also apply to how people in general reason about morals and values. The author highlights the nature of moral discourse, the use of contradictory arguments in moral reasoning, the difficulty of trying to shift moral paradigms during non-revolutionary times, and the impossibility of keeping facts and values distinct as people grapple with conflicting moral claims.Examining the divorce question within historical themes of economic insecurity and Catholic identity, Dillon argues that the discourses articulated during the debate illustrate a universal tension between the forces of tradition and those of modernity. She dissects Irish opposition to divorce in terms of current challenges to rationality and its association with progress and goodness. Debating Divorce will appeal to sociologists and scholars of Irish studies, communication, culture, and religion, as well as to general readers with an interest in Ireland or moral discourse.

Decision heuristics: Ticket-splitting and the Irish voter

How the ballot is structured encourages particular strategies of electoral choice. One philosophy is to de-emphasize party by listing candidates alphabetically. Ireland's single transferable vote ballot takes this form. This encourages voters to express support for candidates of more than one party. Malta and Australia also use the single transferable vote, but the ballot groups candidates by party. The result is far fewer vote transfers between parties than is typical in Ireland.

Voter behavior under STV-PR: Solving the puzzle of the Irish party system

This paper examines voter preferences when voters are allowed to rank order large numbers of candidates both within and between different parties (STV-PR). How voters complete such a ballot has consequences both for models of voting behaviour and also for patterns of party competition. More concretely, although such a system should promote a great deal of candidate centered voting behaviour, this does not, in fact, seem to occur for the case we examine. While Irish voters do seem to exhibit multiple party loyalties they are, nevertheless, party and not candidate specific loyalties. The consequences of this for both a Michigan account of party loyalty and also standard interpretations of Irish party competition are discussed.

Moral and Physical Force: The Language of Violence in Irish Nationalism

In recent years Irish historians have begun to look more closely into the strategies and tactics of nineteenth-century nationalism, exposing some of the disunities and inconsistencies in a movement long considered monolithic by generations of patriots and ideologues. Although we may rightly claim to know a good deal more than our predecessors about the contours and contents of Irish nationalism, there are still a number of ambiguities and unknowns about its nature, not to mention its significance. Indeed, if K. T. Hoppen is to be believed, most historians have erred by concentrating on the nationalist campaigns of the O'Connellites, Fenians, and Parnellites while neglecting altogether the arena of local politics. Stressing the “deep and constant” importance of “the parish pump,” Hoppen insists that the Repeal and Home Rule agitations were simply “unusual superimpositions upon the deeply pervasive and enduring localist traditions of Irish political life.” Irish voters, then, especially those in the boroughs, lived by and for local issues, personalities, and parties, and many were willing to sell their votes to the highest bidder or the biggest spender.Such a strong dose of historical revisionism may have its uses, but Hoppen's book, for all its massive documentation, verve, and erudition, does not provide any explanation for the huge outpouring of support given to O'Connell, Parnell, and other advocates of “national” as well as “nationalist” issues. Only an incisive and far-ranging study of political propaganda, ideology, and the mobilization of voters and nonvoters alike in nineteenth-century Ireland can hope to resolve this controversy over the priorities of local and national as well as nationalist issues.

Rational Choice Models and Aggregate Voter Behaviour in the 1929–69 Northern Irish Parliamentary Elections*

ABSTRACTRational‐choice models of voter behaviour are concerned with two basic questions: what stimulates citizens to vote, and, if a citizen votes, for whom does he/she vote? In this study, aggregate voter behaviour is modelled as a system of equations with three endogenous variables related to these questions. The parameters of this system are estimated with pooled cross‐sectional, time‐series data on the 1929–69 Northern Irish Parliamentary elections. After appropriate controls are included and within the constraints imposed by these data, evidence is found which supports the applicability of rational‐choice models to these elections. On the related issue of voter decision rules, evidence is found which supports the calculus‐of‐voting approach, an important component of many voting models (e.g., spatial models of candidate/party competition). Finally, the analysis highlights the major aspects of Northern Irish voter behaviour in these elections and can serve as a paradigm for the examination of similar electoral data from other political systems.

The Political Sociology of Party Support in Ireland: A Reassessment

Perhaps most important characteristic of modem western European party systems has been their long-term stability in face of widespread and deep-seated social change. While many countries have seen accelerating changes in social stratification, social mobility, and urbanization in postwar years, their party systems have been, with minor exceptions, largely immune from repercussions of these changes.' Political sociology has produced two different emphases to account for this political ossification. On one hand, Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan have argued that, while party systems and cleavage structures result from complex interaction between fundamental social cleavages (mainly class, religion, and region) and patterns of institutional development, once translated into political divisions they acquire a momentum which permits them autonomy from potentially destabilizing social change.2 On other hand, Giovanni Sartori has suggested that this approach ignores extent to which various social factors are picked out by elite decision, thereby ensuring continuing adaptability of parties to change in their social bases.3 The Lipset and Rokkan model provided inspiration for first attempts to place Irish politics in a comparative perspective, with varying success. As Ireland appeared to lack class, religious, and regional social cleavages of normal western European countries, John Whyte emphasized the low degree to which Irish electoral behavior is structured at 'all. To explain this he retreated into history: Irish parties are sui generis because the context from which they spring is sui generis also.4 However, by exploring this context, Tom Garvin has demonstrated partial validity of Lipset and Rokkan model by showing that a center-periphery cleavage helped to explain salient division in Irish politics between two major parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, ostensibly based on positions taken in Irish Civil War of 1921 to 1923: Under Celtic imagery, Ireland exhibits an example of a very common western pattern.s5 Irish voters were thus mobilized into United Kingdom polity in nineteenth century before they were proletarianized. Garvin fits dominance of national question in Irish politics into familiar mobilization/state formation/industrialization paradigm.6 The regional and socio-cultural underpinnings of Civil War split have also often been commented on, as has their gradual erosion since then.7 More recently, R. K. Carty has seen Irish case as a theoretical challenge to whole Lipset and Rokkan model. Following Sartori's emphasis on elite management, he stresses creation of a political cleavage around Civil War split

The "Irish Vote" and Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1860-1876

THE "IRISH VOTE" AND PARTY POLITICS IN MASSACHUSETTS, 1860-1876 Dale Baum The influx of Irish Catholic immigrants into Massachusetts in the 1840's and 1850's coincided with a great period of political party realignment. Whig party predominance was superseded gradually by a powerful and enduring coalition of voters forged by the new Republican party. According to conventional wisdom, among thevoters who did not alter their party commitments or even temporarily shift their partisan allegiances during the political upheavals were the state's Irish-American citizens. Steadfast in their hostility to the anti-slavery cause on the one side, and to the nativist movement on the other, the Irish remained loyal to the Democratic party. While historians disagree over whether sectional issues regarding slavery or ethocultural and religious concerns had greater impact upon the reshuffling of other voters, most would agree that the Irish were unmovable obstacles to the reformist trends in Massachusetts political life and that after the Know-Nothing episode they were more than ever set apart from the larger society around them.1 The Civil War, it is argued, ended the social, intellectual, and psychological isolation of the Massachusetts Irish. The loyalty of the An earlier version of this article was read at the 1979 meeting of the Organization of American Historians. The author acknowledges a summer research grant and computer time provided by Texas A&M University to assist with this study. The author also wishes to thank the following scholars for their helpful suggestions: Jay Dolan of Notre Dame University; Carol Groneman of the New York Council for the Humanities; Allan J. Lichtman of American University; and Peyton McCrary of the University of South Alabama. 1 William G. Bean, "An Aspect of Know-Nothingism: The Immigrant and Slavery," South Atlantic Quarterly XXIII (Oct., 1924), 319-324; "Puritan Versus Celt: 1850-1860," New England Quarterly VII (Mar., 1934), 70-89; and "Party Transformation in Massachusetts with Special Reference to the Antecedents of Republicanism, 1848-1860" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1922), 195-223; Oscar Handlin, Bostons Immigrants: A Study in Acculturation (New York, 1972, revised and enlarged edition), 178-206; Gilbert Osofsky, "Abolitionists, Irish Immigrants, and the Dilemmas of Romantic Nationalism," American Historical Review LXXX (Oct., 1975), 889-912. Fora provocative interpretation of the political realignment of the 1850's, see: Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s (New York, 1978). Civil War History, Vol. XXVI, No. 2 Copyright ® 1980 by The Kent State University Press 0009-8078/80/2602-0002 $01.25/0 118CIVIL WAR HISTORY Irish to the Union cause and the participation ofmany ofthem in the war itself helped destroy some of the barriers that had separated them from Yankees. More importantly, immediately after the war the activities of Irish nationalists and the revitalization of the labor movement provided a common ground for discussion among Irishmen, Republicans, and labor reformers. Republican politicians, such as Benjamin F. Butler and Nathaniel P. Banks, joined the leaders of organized labor in recruiting Irish support. On the national level, the administration of Ulysses S. Grant actively sought the favor of Irish voters. As a consequence, according to David Montgomery, "Irish votes were not by definition Democratic" from 1866 to 1872.2 Did the assiduous efforts of many Massachusetts Republicans to woo Irish voters succeed, or did the Irish continue to favor the Democratic party throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction period? To what extent did the rise of an independent Labor Reform party in the postwar period place strains on the bonds between the Irish and their traditional allegiance to the Democratic party? In addition to traditional evidence, the use of ecological regression techniques makes it possible to evaluate the relative importance of the "Irish vote" in the coalitional support for the Republican, Labor Reform, and Democratic parties, during these crucial years of the Massachusetts party system. In the 1850's virtually every major political party, with the obvious exception of the Native Americans or Know-Nothings, sought at one time or another the support of the Irish. The migration of many Irish Catholics into what once had been the urban Whig strongholds of eastern Massachusetts created a peculiar political situation. An antiWhig coalition of Democrats...

Did the Irish and German Voters Desert the Democrats in 1920? A Tentative Statistical Answer

It has often been said that the desertion of disproportionately large numbers of Irish and German voters from the Democratic party in 1920 was a major factor in producing the Republican landslide of that year. Warren G. Harding certainly had a German-American father-in-law, had had pro-German sympathies before 1917, and as early as 1916 had been spoken of as a man whom the German-American community could support for the Presidency. The Democratic candidate was undoubtedly identified with Woodrow Wilson, who through his unwillingness to press for self-determination for Ireland could be said to have ‘alienated nearly all of Irish America’. But it is difficult, lacking knowledge as we do of the precise numbers of Irish and German voters who swung away from the Democrats, to feel that a final statement on the matter has been made, while those statements which have been made have not been finally convincing, even where based on statistical evidence.

Odd Man Out? Irish Neutrality and European Security*

W HEN, on May 10th, the Irish people voted overwhelmingly to join the European Community, the culmination of some eighteen months public debate had been reached. Although the procedure of referendum was not in itself an issue-under Article 46 of the 1937 constitution it is an integral part of the process of constitutional amendment-almost every other conceivable topic was raised. The general, open-ended wording of the proposed amendment was criticised and although economic questions were predominant, the debate also touched on the political, cultural and even moral aspects of EEC membership. All in all, there was a veritable orgy of claims and counter-claims, which the Irish voter had to digest as best he could. But there was a ghost at the banquet, in the nebulous shape of the issue of neutrality. Like any ghost it made the occasional, brief appearance, took on a simple and sometimes ominous outline, but quickly dissolved into the void on closer examination. The Irish public has been complacent in ignoring this issue, though there are understandable reasons why this should be the case. The fact that the Treaty of Rome excludes defence perhaps blinded it to the fact that the original signatories had also subscribed to an established security treaty. A more important reason for short-sightedness, however, is that because of the country's fortunate strategic position, Irishmen have rarely been compelled to think at all about security from external threats. And when in the mid-1930s the international anarchy in Europe did compel them to give it their attention, the experience cast their minds in a mould which proved so satisfying that since then the issue has virtually been elevated above the level of normal public discussion. The Irishman talks about neutrality, not about security; moreover, he does not talk about it much and thinks about it even less. This simple attitude obscures the fact that neutrality has two different meanings in the Irish context. It is, first of all, a policy to provide for the security of the state in certain specific international circumstances. Viewed in this light, the Irish Free State was not strictly neutral up to 1936, for it subscribed to the collective security obligations of the

III. Ireland and the Ballot Act of 1872

It is almost a commonplace nowadays that the passing of the Ballot Act of 1872 revolutionized Irish politics. Sir Robert Ensor is quite categorical: ‘But where the act had revolutionary consequences, which its authors had neither foreseen nor intended, was in Ireland.’ The authority quoted is Charles Stewart Parnell, who had insisted: ‘Hitherto the Irish voter, powerless against the intimidation of his social superiors, had returned members to one or other of the two English parliamentary parties’ and now with secret voting ‘need do so no longer’. By way of conclusion Ensor goes so far as to reflect: ‘that but for the undesigned gift of this act, the whole of his meteoric career, with its profound reactions upon English history for half a century, might never have occurred’. Elsewhere he attributed the emergence of the classic Irish party to agricultural depression and Parnell's magnetic leadership, though without in any way specifically retracting the ballot point.

The Irish voter's decision

The Irish voter's decision