Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West was a parliamentary constituency represented in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish parliament or Oireachtas. Covering most of County Cork except the northern eastern and eastern parts and also excluding Cork city, it existed from 1921–1923. It elected eight Teachtaí Dála (TDs) to the Dáil, using the Single transferable vote method of proportional representation (PR-STV).

History

The constituency was created in 1921 as a 8-seater, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, for the 1921 election to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, whose members formed the 2nd Dáil.

It succeeded the constituencies of Cork Mid, Cork North, Cork South, Cork South-East and Cork West which were used to elect the Members of the 1st Dáil and earlier UK House of Commons members.

It was abolished under the Electoral Act 1923, when it was replaced by the new Cork North and Cork West constituencies^[1] which were first used in the 1923 general election for the Members of the 4th Dáil.

TDs

Note: The columns in this table are used only for presentational purposes, and no significance should be attached to the order of columns. For details of the order in which seats were won at each election, see the detailed results of that election.

The constituency's most notable TD was General Michael Collins, who was Minister for Finance in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations. He was killed during the Civil War in an ambush on 22 August 1922 near the village of Béal na mBláth, days before the 1923 general election.

Elections

1921 general election

At the 1921 general election to the 2nd Dáil, no seats were contested in the 26 counties which became the Irish Free State. In Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West only eight candidates were nominated for the constituency's eight seats. No ballot was needed, and all eight Sinn Féin candidates were elected unopposed after the close of nominations on 24 May 1921. The 8 TDs elected are listed here in alphabetical order:^[2]

• Michael Collins^[5]
• Daniel Corkery
• Seán Hales
• Seán Hayes
• Seán MacSwiney
• Seán Moylan
• Seán Nolan
• Patrick O'Keeffe

1922 general election

The 1922 general election took place in Southern Ireland on 16 June 1922, under the provisions of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty to elect a constituent assembly paving the way for the formal establishment of the Irish Free State. For Irish Republicans this chose the membership of the Third Dáil of the Irish Republic; under the provisions of the treaty it was a provisional parliament replacing the Parliament of Southern Ireland. From 6 December 1922 it was the Dáil Éireann of the Irish Free State.

As at the 1921 elections, Sinn Féin stood one candidate for every seat, except those for two Dublin constituencies; the treaty had divided the party between 65 pro-treaty candidates, 57 anti-treaty and 1 nominally on both sides. Unlike the elections a year earlier, other parties stood in most constituencies forcing single transferable vote elections, with Sinn Féin losing 30 seats.

In Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West, Sinn Féin's eight candidates (all outgoing TDs from the 2nd Dáil) were joined by two from the Labour Party and two from the Farmers' Party. Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidates won a combined total of 45.74% of the first-preference votes, with their anti-Treaty counterparts winning a combined 23.04%. Both Labour Party candidates were elected, along with one Farmers' Party candidate, unseating two anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TDs and one pro-Treaty TD.

References

See also

• Parliamentary constituencies in the Republic of Ireland
• Politics of the Republic of Ireland
• List of political parties in the Republic of Ireland
• List of Irish by-elections
• Elections in the Republic of Ireland

External links

• Oireachtas Members Database