Tension in the north - and in the Council Chamber

The newspapers throughout Ireland screamed the headlines, overwhelming success for nationalist parties! This was the dramatic outcome of the Local Elections in 1920 with Sinn Fein, Labour and other nationalists taking control of 172 of Ireland's 206 borough and urban district councils.

In the north of Ireland the reaction was far from elation, for the results sent disturbing quakes throughout the radical Unionist supporters. Lloyd George’s new Home Rule Bill, the Government of Ireland Act 1920, had introduced partition for the first time, proposing separate Northern and Southern parliaments. Edward Carson and his Unionists had strongly resisted both Home Rule, and partition. When this became inevitable, Unionists had insisted that the north should be made up of only those counties with a Unionist majority, which was, they argued, six counties rather than the whole nine counties of Ulster. Now in these local elections two of those proposed 'Six Counties', Fermanagh and Tyrone, proved to have, in fact, Nationalist majorities.

Worse still for Unionists, Derry had elected its first Catholic Mayor in three hundred years. All of this helped to create a Protestant backlash later in the year, when Unionists James Craig and Edward Carson marshalled their Ulster Volunteers and set them loose on the Catholic population.¹ 

North Ward Result
Fermanagh Herald 24 Jan 1920

The tension had not yet begun in early February when Frank Carney took his seat on the Enniskillen Urban District Council as one of two new Labour Councillors. Frank, his Labour colleague, Mr W. E. Campling, and an Independent Labour Councillor, Bernard Keenan, had helped make up a nationalist majority on the Council.²  

As soon as the outgoing Chairman, Nationalist Party member Joe Gillen, called the meeting to order, Frank Carney was the first to speak.³ Frank proposed that the outgoing Chairman should continue in office for the new session. He was quickly seconded by the other Labour Councillor, Mr Campling, in what everyone present must have known was an orchestrated manoeuvre.⁴ 

Fermanagh Herald 24 Jan 1920

There had obviously been a pre-election pact between the three nationalist parties, Sinn Féin, the Nationalist Party and Labour. Sinn Féin had agreed not to put up any candidates, so that the Nationalist Party could win the Catholic vote. In return,  Sinn Féin people stood equally unopposed as Labour candidates, to win the workers vote. The completion of the agreement was that the elected Labour Councillors would support Nationalist Joe Gillen as Chairman.

The amicable ballet that had opened this first Council meeting continued with the appointment of Councillors to the various committees. This time it was agreement between the nationalist group and the opposing Unionists. Each side put forward delegates for a committee, and all were approved unopposed. Frank Carney was appointed to the 8-man Public Health Committee. It all went fairly smoothly.

At the next meeting of the Council, the gloves were off. Frank Carney threw the first punch, arriving in the meeting with a radical proposition. A letter had come to Enniskillen from Monaghan County Council explaining that they had passed a resolution protesting against partition of any kind. Frank proposed that this anti-partition resolution should also be passed by this Council, the Enniskillen Urban District Council.⁵ 

Unionist James Cooper was quick  to object and he then to proposed an amendment which clearly illustrates the Unionist mindset of the time.⁶  The amendment stated,

“That we the Urban District Council of Enniskillen do hereby declare that we neither require nor wish for Home Rule of any description whatever. At the same time we rejoice to see that in the present Home Rule proposals before Parliament the loyal and peaceable County of Fermanagh has been grouped with the other loyal and peaceable counties which are henceforth to join the Parliament of Northern Ireland. The Co.  of Fermanagh is largely owned, occupied and populated by Unionists who pay two-thirds of all rates and taxes collected in the county and who would abhor to be grouped with the anti-British element of which the proposed Parliament of Southern Ireland will consist.”

Ulster Herald 6 Mar 1920

Several Councillors joined the discussion, but Frank Carney was getting heated, and he stated that he thought that his own resolution was inadequate,

“I am in agreement with Mr Cooper about the present Home Rule Bill, and I would not pick it off a Christmas tree! What we want is self-determination. The resolution does not go far enough!”

Now was the time for the Unionist Councillor, James Cooper, to make it public that he knew exactly who these ‘Labour’ Councillors were,

“When this board was being formed, two of the members said that they came to represent a particular section of the people, that their motto was Labour first, Labour second and nothing but Labour. They were to have no politics whatever, but Labour was to make a bridge between the Unionists and the Nationalists in the Council”

James Cooper went on to include a third man, the Independent Labour Councillor who we know was Bernard Keenan.⁷  Mr Cooper declared that these three 'neutral' people, the two Labour and the Independant Labour, were all now against the Unionists.

Although no-one in the room mentioned the words 'Sinn Féin', it was all out in the open now, and the Chairman, Mr Gillen, acknowledged this subtlety,

“The Independant Labour man and the two other Labour men know who their best friends are, and there is no use in anyone trying to camouflage them one way or another. You would have to rise very early in the morning to be able to do that.”

So at this early stage of their membership of the Urban District Council, Frank Carney, Mr Campling and Bernard Keenan were all revealed to be Sinn Féin men. Shortly after that meeting in early March the Council members would learn a great deal more about at least one of their new colleagues, when arrests were made in Enniskillen.

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References and Notes:

¹  “The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition 1920 -1921”, Robert Lynch, Irish Academic Press, 2006

²  Fermanagh Herald 1903-current, Feb 7^th 1920, page 3, Irish Newspaper Archives

³ Joe Gillen was a business man in Enniskillen owning a pub and a furniture store. He was a famous footballer in his youth, and his playing career was spent in goal for Enniskillen Celtic. He was club secretary of Fermanagh IFA in 1903, helping them to their best ever year in 1905. In 1906 he became chair of the Fermanagh and South Tyrone league until the first world war intervened. He died in 1939 at the age of 59, a wreath from the IFA on his coffin indicated the esteem they felt for Mr Gillen.

⁴ Walter Ernest Campling was born on 8 Dec 1882 in Fort Canning, Singapore, possibly the son of a soldier. There is a lovely little story about Walter as a child. Walter was chosen to act as Queen Victoria's Drummer Boy when she did her tour of Ireland in 1900. When she was leaving at Belfast she asked to see him and gave him a rose from her bouquet. He had saved this flower in the pages of the family bible but when it was opened after his death to show one of his sons, it disintegrated into dust. He became a drummer in the 4th Battallion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers after joining on 18 Jan 1897. Walter was badly wounded in WW1. He had his kneecap shot off and multiple shrapnel wounds. Most of the shrapnel was removed but one piece was inoperable. He used to walk with a stick. He had achieved the rank of Quarter Master Sergeant in the Army. When he was medically discharged he joined the Tax Office where he worked as a clerk until he died on 10 October 1931.

⁵  Ulster Herald 1901-current, March 6 1920, page 6, Irish Newspaper Archives

⁶  James Cooper, Solicitor and company director. Born 26th February 1882. Educated at Portora Royal School and Wesley College, Dublin. Member of Enniskillen Urban District Council. Chairman of Fermanagh County Council from 1924 to 1928. Deputy Lieutenant for County Fermanagh. Custodian of the Enniskillen Savings Bank. An Ulster Unionist member of the British Parliament who sat for Fermanagh and Tyrone from the general election of 1921 until the general election of 1929 when he retired. He died 21st July 1949.

⁷ I believe that Bernard Keenan is the same ‘B. Keenan’ that Francis O’Duffy mentions in his statement to the Bureau of Military History. If so, he was, like Frank, and ex British soldier who was drill instructor in the Irish Volunteers in Enniskillen pre-1915. Bureau of Military History 1913-1921, WS Ref #: 654 , Witness: Francis O'Duffy, Captain IV, Enniskillen, 1913; Chairman Monaghan Dail Courts, 1919 - 1921