Thomas Scanlan

Thomas Scanlan (21 May 1874–January 9 1930) was an Irish nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party represented North Sligo from 1909 to 1918. He also practised as a barrister.

Son of Matthew Scanlan, a farmer, he was born at Drumcliffe, Co. Sligo, and educated at Summerhill College, Sligo and at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. In 1905 he married Mary Helen Mullen of Glasgow, daughter of John Mullen.

He began his career as a journalist on the "Glasgow Observer". Later he became a solicitor and eventually was called to the English Bar and became prominently identified with the Irish movement in London. He was elected unopposed for North Sligo at a by-election in August 1909 and was unopposed in the January and December 1910 general elections. At one time he served as a secretary of the Irish Parliamentary Party. In 1918 he lost his seat to J. J. Clancy of Sinn Féin, by a margin of more than two to one.

Scanlan was responsible for the first successful bill prescribing use of the single transferable vote (STV) for any part of the United Kingdom, the Sligo Corporation Act 1918. Since 1911, when the Proportional Representation Society of Ireland was formed, electoral reform had been seen as a way of ensuring that the Protestant minority in Ireland would be guaranteed effective participation in politics under Home Rule. The Home Rule Act 1914 contained partial provision for STV, but was never implemented. STV was however used for the elections for the new Corporation in Sligo in January 1919, in which the Ratepayers’ Association (consisting largely of Protestants) headed the poll and Sinn Féin came second. Proportional representation has subsequently been a key feature of politics in Ireland, both North and South.

As a barrister, Scanlan represented the Seamen’s and Firemen’s Union at the inquiry into the sinking of the "Titanic" in 1912. In the event the government paid the Union's costs, and on this account Scanlan was criticised in some quarters for accepting a government brief, although he had accepted the brief before he knew that the government would pay. [Maume (1999), p. 128] He was also criticised for living in England. [Maume (1999), pp. 101, 132] After his parliamentary defeat he was a London Metropolitan Police Magistrate from 1924 to 1927, [Who Was Who says 1925 to 1927, the "Irish Independent" 1924 to 1928] resigning due to ill-health. Afterwards he resumed his practice at the Bar.

During his career he was a close friend of T. P. O'Connor, acting as a pall-bearer at the latter's funeral in 1929.

Notes

ources

* Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1912
* "Irish Independent", 10 January 1930
* Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life 1891-1918, New York, St Martin's Press, 1999
* Cornelius O'Leary, "Irish Elections 1918-1977: Parties, Voters and Proportional Representation", Dublin, Gill & MacMillan, 1979
* Brian M. Walker (ed.), "Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922", Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978
* "Who Was Who", 1929-1940