Joseph Devlin

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Joseph (Joe) Devlin (1872-18 January 1934) was an influential Nationalist politician and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons at Westminster and in Northern Ireland.

Born in Hamill Street, Belfast, "Wee Joe" was a journalist with the Irish News, and a member of the UK and Northern Ireland Parliaments for many years, on the Nationalist Party, Home Rule and Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) platforms.

He was elected unopposed as MP for Kilkenny North in a by-election on 26 February 1902. In 1906, he was re-elected to Kilkenny North, and also to Belfast West. Choosing to retain the Belfast seat, he served as its MP until 1918. He represented in the main purely urban interests.

As Grandmaster of the sectarian lay-Catholic order, the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) which he founded in the 1890s, he was closely associated with the leaders of the Irish Parliamentary Party, primarily John Dillon MP, who fell under his spell. Devlin also enlisted the Catholic Hierarchy in his cause of preserving Catholic/Protestant antagonism, which John Redmond MP tactically ignored. Devlin was a gifted organiser, boasting to Redmond that, at Redmond's bid, his organisation could provide full attendance of suitable "supporters" at any meeting, demonstration or convention throughout Ireland, something Redmond and his Party often availed of.

Members of his Order, largely composed of earlier members of the Molly Maguires, a militant secret society also known as the Mollies, became members of the Irish Party, deeply infiltrating it. Devlin took over control of William O'Brien's United Ireland League (UIL) when becoming its secretary in 1904, amalgamating it into the IPP. The AOH were openly against any inclusion or understanding of Protestant interests in a foreseen All-Ireland Home Rule settlement, thus irreversibly influencing the course and attitude of the IPP, and its Sinn Fein successor, towards the Protestant community in Ireland.

Standing in opposition to these were the Munster based All-for-Ireland League (AFIL). This Independent Party of William O'Brien MP and his colleague D.D. Sheehan MP, together with their followers took a vehement stand against Devlin's Order's involvement with the Irish Party, particularly after Devlin organised the "Baton Convention" of December 1908, silencing O'Brien and his followers. The AFIL held the AOH with its militant Mollies as being at the root of the widespresd religious intimidation and sectarian violence from 1900 on, this eventually replacing constitutional parliamentary nationalism with the path of miltant physical-force violence, culminating in the final partition of Ireland.

At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Devlin supported and encouraged recruiting into Redmond's Irish Brigade, telling Belfast working-class Catholics they would return as trained soldiers to fight the Ulster Volunteers. This statement was similar to that of Radmond's statement to the Volunteers which greatly aroused the suspicions of the War Office, resulting in the 16th (Irish) Division being manned by British officers rather than by the promised Irish officers.

In 1918, Devlin was elected MP for Belfast Falls in the December elections (having defeated Eamon de Valera). In the first election for the Northern Ireland House of Commons in 1921, Devlin was elected for both Antrim and Belfast West. He chose to sit for Belfast West although his seat in the seven member Antrim constituency was left vacant for the rest of the Parliament.

Devlin was re-elected in Belfast West in 1925 and sat for the four member constituency until Proportional Representation by the Single Transferable Vote was abolished for territorial constituencies and single member seats were introduced for the 1929 election.

From 1929 until his death, Joe Devlin was the Northern Ireland MP for Fermanagh and Tyrone.

An acknowledged leader of nationalists in Ulster for decades, Devlin died in Belfast in 1934.

[edit] Sources

• Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
• Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results 1921-1972, by Sydney Elliott (Political Reference Publications 1973)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (The Macmillan Press 1977)

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Patrick McDermott	MP for Kilkenny North 1902–1906	Succeeded by Michael Meagher
Preceded by Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster	MP for Belfast West 1906–1918	Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Preceded by New creation	MP for Belfast Falls 1918–1922	Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Preceded by James Alexander Pringle Sir Charles Fausset Falls	MP for Fermanagh and Tyrone 1929–1934	Succeeded by Joseph Francis Stewart