Fermanagh County Council | |
|---|---|
 | |
| History | |
| Founded | 18 April 1899 |
| Disbanded | 1 October 1973 |
| Succeeded by | Fermanagh District Council |
| Meeting place | |
 | |
| County Buildings, Enniskillen | |
Fermanagh County Council was the authority responsible for local government in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, between 1899 and 1973. [1] It was originally based at the Enniskillen Courthouse, [2] but moved to County Buildings in East Bridge Street, Enniskillen, in 1960. [3]
Fermanagh County Council was formed under orders issued in accordance with the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which came into effect on 18 April 1899. [4] Elections were held using proportional representation until 1922 when it was abolished in favour of first past the post. [5] In 1921, shortly before the partition of Ireland and transfer of power from the Dublin Castle administration, Fermanagh County Council passed a resolution on a 13–10 majority not to recognise the newly formed Parliament of Northern Ireland and pledged their allegiance to the unrecognised republican Second Dáil of the self-proclaimed Irish Republic in Southern Ireland before the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. [6] The resolution stated: "We, the County Council of Fermanagh, in view of the expressed desire of a large majority of people in this county, do not recognise the partition parliament in Belfast and do hereby direct our Secretary to hold no further communications with either Belfast or British Local Government Departments, and we pledge our allegiance to Dáil Éireann." [6] In response, the Royal Irish Constabulary evicted them from their council offices and confiscated official documents. [7] As a result, the council was temporarily dissolved. [5] The council were replaced by Commissioners appointed by Sir Dawson Bates. [6]
The council was reformed by the time of the 1924 Northern Ireland local elections. As a protest against the abolition of proportional representation nationalist parties boycotted the election, allowing unionist parties to take control of the council uncontested. [8] Due to the abolition of proportional representation and gerrymandering, the council always had a unionist majority of councillors elected up until abolition. [9] In 1967, the Government of Northern Ireland passed the County Fermanagh (Transfer of Functions) Order 1967. This made Fermanagh County Council amalgamate with the smaller Enniskillen Borough Council and the rural district councils in Enniskillen, Irvinestown and Lisnaskea to turn Fermanagh County Council into a unitary authority. [10]
In 1969, the Fermanagh Civil Rights Association published a booklet criticising the council and accusing them of favouring the Protestant community over the Catholic community. Some of the accusations included that the council would deliberately hire Protestants for skilled local government and school jobs and that they proposed to build a new village for Catholics in a gerrymandered district that already had a Catholic majority. [5] The council was abolished in accordance with the Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 on 1 October 1973 and replaced by Fermanagh District Council. [1]
County Fermanagh is one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of six counties of Northern Ireland
Ulster is one of the four traditional or historic Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland ; the remaining three are in the Republic of Ireland.
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act's long title was "An Act to provide for the better government of Ireland"; it is also known as the Fourth Home Rule Bill or (inaccurately) as the Fourth Home Rule Act and informally known as the Partition Act. The Act was intended to partition Ireland into two self-governing polities: the six north-eastern counties were to form "Northern Ireland", while the larger part of the country was to form "Southern Ireland". Both territories were to remain part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and provision was made for their future reunification through a Council of Ireland. The Act was passed by the British Parliament in November 1920, received royal assent in December and came into force on 3 May 1921.
Southern Ireland was the larger of the two parts of Ireland that were created when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It comprised 26 of the 32 counties of Ireland or about five-sixths of the area of the island, whilst the remaining six counties, which occupied most of Ulster in the north of the island, formed Northern Ireland. Southern Ireland included County Donegal, despite it being the largest county in Ulster and the most northerly county in all of Ireland.
James Craig, 1st Viscount CraigavonPC PC (NI) DL, was a leading Irish unionist and a key architect of Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom. During the Home Rule Crisis of 1912–14, he defied the British government in preparing an armed resistance in Ulster to an all-Ireland parliament. He accepted partition as a final settlement, securing the opt out of six Ulster counties from the dominion statehood accorded Ireland under the terms of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. From then until his death in 1940, he led the Ulster Unionist Party and served Northern Ireland as its first Prime Minister. He publicly characterised his administration as a "Protestant" counterpart to the "Catholic state" nationalists had established in the south. Craig was created a baronet in 1918 and raised to the Peerage in 1927.
The Parliament of Northern Ireland was the home rule legislature of Northern Ireland, created under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which sat from 7 June 1921 to 30 March 1972, when it was suspended because of its inability to restore order during The Troubles, resulting in the introduction of Direct Rule. It was abolished under the Northern Ireland Constitution Act 1973.
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It was created as a separate legal entity on 3 May 1921, under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The new autonomous Northern Ireland was formed from six of the nine counties of Ulster: four counties with unionist majorities – Antrim, Armagh, Down, and Derry/Londonderry – and two counties with slight Irish nationalist majorities – Fermanagh and Tyrone – in the 1918 General Election. The remaining three Ulster counties with larger nationalist majorities were not included. In large part unionists, at least in the north-east, supported its creation while nationalists were opposed.
The 1921 Irish elections took place in Ireland on 24 May 1921 to elect members of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland. These legislatures had been established by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, which granted Home Rule to a partitioned Ireland within the United Kingdom.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) (Irish: Cumann Cearta Sibhialta Thuaisceart Éireann) was an organisation that campaigned for civil rights in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Formed in Belfast on 9 April 1967, the civil rights campaign attempted to achieve reform by publicising, documenting, and lobbying for an end to discrimination against Catholics in areas such as elections (which were subject to gerrymandering and property requirements), discrimination in employment, in public housing and abuses of the Special Powers Act.
The partition of Ireland was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK) divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification. The smaller Northern Ireland was duly created with a devolved government and remained part of the UK. The larger Southern Ireland was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic. On 6 December 1922 Ireland was partitioned. At that time the territory of Southern Ireland left the UK and became the Irish Free State, now known as the Republic of Ireland.
The Irish Boundary Commission met in 1924–25 to decide on the precise delineation of the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the Irish War of Independence, provided for such a commission if Northern Ireland chose to secede from the Irish Free State, an event that occurred as expected two days after the Free State's inception on 6 December 1922, resulting in the partition of Ireland. The governments of the United Kingdom, of the Irish Free State and of Northern Ireland were to nominate one member each to the commission. When the Northern government refused to cooperate, the British government assigned a Belfast newspaper editor to represent Northern Irish interests.
Cahir Healy was an Irish politician.
The repartition of Ireland has been suggested as a possible solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. In 1922 Ireland was partitioned on county lines, and left Northern Ireland with a mixture of both unionists, who wish to remain in the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who wish to join a United Ireland. As the two communities are somewhat regionalised, redrawing the border to better divide the two groups was considered at various points throughout the 20th century.
Events during the year 1921 in Northern Ireland.
Sir Richard Dawson Bates, 1st Baronet, known as Dawson Bates, was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland.
Fermanagh and Tyrone was a county constituency of the Parliament of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1929. It returned eight MPs, using proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote.
Thompson Donald was a Northern Irish Unionist politician.
Elections were held in January and June 1920 for the various county and district councils of Ireland. The elections were organised by the Dublin Castle administration under the law of the then United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK), and held while the Irish War of Independence was pitting UK forces against those of the Irish Republic proclaimed in 1919 by the First Dáil. Elections were held in two stages: borough and urban district councils in January; and county and rural district councils in June. Sinn Féin, which had established the First Dáil, won control of many of the councils, which subsequently broke contact with Dublin Castle's Local Government Board for Ireland and instead recognised the republican Department of Local Government. The election results provide historians with a barometer of public opinion in what would be the last elections administered on an all-island basis: the Government of Ireland Act 1920 passed at the end of the year effected the partition of Ireland from 1921, though the elections for the two home rule Parliaments envisaged by it were held on the same day; No further elections would be held simultaneously across the island of Ireland until 1979, when representatives of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland to the European Parliament were elected. The next local elections were held in 1924 in Northern Ireland and in 1925 in the Irish Free State.
The 1924 Northern Irish local elections were held in January & June 1924 for the various county & district councils of Northern Ireland. The election followed changes by the Unionist government, which had redrawn electoral districts, abolished PR for local elections, and implemented a requirement for members of local authorities to take an oath of allegiance.
The Troubles of the 1920s was a period of conflict in what is now Northern Ireland from June 1920 until June 1922, during and after the Irish War of Independence and the partition of Ireland. It was mainly a communal conflict between Protestant unionists, who wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom, and Catholic Irish nationalists, who backed Irish independence. During this period, more than 500 people were killed in Belfast alone, 500 interned and 23,000 people were made homeless in the city, while approximately 50,000 people fled the north of Ireland due to intimidation. Most of the victims were Nationalists (73%) with civilians being far more likely to be killed compared to the military, police or paramilitaries.
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