Joseph Nolan

Joseph Nolan (1846 - September 14, 1928) 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 Louth from 1885-92, and South Louth from 1900-18. The "Irish Times" (15 September 1928) said he was "One of the Fenians whom Parnellism conquered."

Nolan was a native of County Louth. He married in 1884. [Stenton & Lees (1978)] He was originally a schoolteacher, in Ireland and then at a reformatory school in Liverpool. [Stenton & Lees (1978)] He later became manager of the Aquarium and Casino in New Brighton on the Wirral Peninsula near Liverpool, and this was his job at the time of his first election to Parliament for the new seat of North Louth in the Nationalist landslide of 1885. In this election, as the official Irish National League candidate supported by Charles Stewart Parnell, he defeated Philip Callan, who had previously sat for Co. Louth as a Home Ruler but had fallen out with Parnell and now stood as an Independent Nationalist. Nolan was then returned unopposed in 1886.

When the Irish Parliamentary Party split over the leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell in 1890, Nolan supported Parnell. At the following election in 1892 he stood in South Louth but was defeated by an Anti-Parnellite by more than 2 to 1. At the general election of July 1895 he stood in the North Louth seat again, challenging the prominent Anti-Parnellite incumbent Timothy Michael Healy, but was again defeated, this time by 3 to 2. In a by-election the following September, he came within 88 votes of winning Limerick City as a Parnellite.

At the general election of October 1900, following the reunification of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he stood in the South Louth seat as an Independent Nationalist against the official Nationalist candidate, and won with 57% of the vote. He was subsequently reconciled to the official Party and returned unopposed at South Louth until 1918, when he retired.

His last recorded public appearance seems to have been at a service of thanksgiving for the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty held in Westminster Cathedral, London, on 8 December 1921, which was also attended by his former Irish Parliamentary Party colleagues T. P. O'Connor and Thomas Scanlan. [The Times, 9/12/1921.]

Footnotes

ources

*"Irish Times", 15 September 1928
*Michael Stenton & Stephen Lees, "Who's Who of British Members of Parliament", Vo.2 1886-1918, Sussex, Harvester Press, 1978
*"The Times" (London), 4 December 1885, 5 July 1892, 9 December 1921
*Brian M. Walker (ed.), "Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922", Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978