Members of the 1st Dáil


This is a list of the 105 MPs who were elected for Irish seats at the 1918 United Kingdom general election. Sinn Féin emerged as the largest party, in their first general election. They adopted a policy of abstention from the House of British House of Commons in Westminster. Instead they took their election as a mandate for independence and established a revolutionary parliament known as Dáil Éireann, with its members known as Teachtaí Dála or TDs. It met for the first time on 21 January 1919 in Mansion House in Dublin. The majority of Sinn Féin's MPs were imprisoned at the time so only 27 elected representatives attended the initial meeting of the First Dáil. The First Dáil lasted 892 days. Those elected for the remaining Irish seats, from the Irish Parliamentary Party and the Irish Unionist Party, for the most part ignored the invitation to attend the First Dáil. Thomas Harbison, elected for the Irish Parliamentary Party for North East Tyrone, did acknowledge the invitation, but "stated he should decline for obvious reasons".
Under this Irish republican theory, all 105 MPs were members of the Dáil, and their names were called out on the roll of membership. The database of Oireachtas members includes only those elected for Sinn Féin. For clarity on the representation of constituencies, they are listed here in a single list.


Election result (Ireland only)

Members by constituency

Changes

Vacancies

When Pierce McCan died on 6 March 1919, his East Tipperary seat was left vacant at Westminster. In April 1919 a Dáil committee considering how to fill the vacancy considered allowing nomination by the Labour Party before recommending that the Sinn Féin constituency organisation should nominate. However, in June 1919 the Dáil decided that "it was due to the memory of the late Pierce McCann that his place should not be filled at present". Later vacancies were also left unfilled; when Diarmuid Lynch resigned his seat in 1920, Arthur Griffith said "as the letter of resignation was addressed to the people of South-East Cork, the next step in the matter lay with the South-East Cork Executive of Sinn Fein".
Four TDs represented two separate constituencies: Éamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith, Eoin MacNeill and Liam Mellowes. Ordinarily, this would prompt them to choose one constituency to represent, and to move a writ for a by-election in the other constituency.

By-elections

The following Westminster by-elections to Irish seats were filled by Unionists who sat at Westminster.