THE COMING ELECTIONS …

The coming elections … water and refuse the main issues in Kildare 100 years ago.

Liam Kenny

Elections were as hotly contested a century ago as they are today. A look back at the local press of May 1914 shows a plethora of rallies, campaigns and meetings being reported. Typical of these was the “Kildare Workingmen’s Association” rally which took place in the White Abbey Hall in May 1914 in advance of County and District Council elections to be held in early June. The meeting had been convened to nominate candidates on behalf of the workingmen of the Naas Rural District Council – an area centred on Naas but which extended west across mid-county embracing Newbridge and Kildare town. It was one of three rural districts councils which formed a sub-unit of the County Council – the others were centred on Celbridge and on Athy. Although subsidiary to the County Council the District Councils did work which mattered to people at local level. Among the issues raised were the provision of a water supply and a refuse depot for Kildare town. It is striking how a century later the provision of water and the disposal of waste remain hot topics in local government circles.

The meeting also had notable political overtones. The workingmens’ associations aimed to represent the interests of labourers and their families. In this way they were a form of labour party but given the class structures of the Kildare area in 1914 when landed interests dominated they had to form compromises in order to be represented at the council table. The workingmen in an area where most labourers worked for farmers and for large shop-keepers did not have the industrial muscle of the kind that the unionised labourers in Dublin had unleashed in the Lock-Out of 1913. As a result they had to entrust their interests to local businessmen who were likely to get enough votes from other classes in the locality to make it to the council chamber.

 The meeting had been called to complete the nomination of two “respectable gentlemen of extensive mercantile connection with Kildare” to carry the representation of the workingmen, Messrs J.J. Murphy and John Moore.  The line-up of clergy, professionals and businesspeople who signed the nominations is instructive: Very Rev. N. A. Staples, Dr. L. F. Rowan, Daniel Boland, Denis Flood, Edward McCormack, Thomas Harte, and Patrick Talbot. Few of those named would be workingmen in the accepted sense of the word but clearly they were the ones who carried political clout with the ratepayers who would have to pay for any social initiatives undertaken by the council.

Just one of the candidates was present – Mr Moore, who was clearly not the type who believed in knocking at the doors in terms of mobilising voters in his favour. He said he would not canvass the voters “as they knew him very well.” His running mate, J. J. Murphy, sent his apologies but his absence did not imply any lessening of his ambition for what he could do for Kildare town. On the contrary he evoked some of Kildare’s past glories as a great monastic mecca. He sent a message to say he would promote the town “to make it worthy of its central position and name, and that he hoped to see it at no distant date the great market centre of the Irish nation.” On a more practical level he pledged support for water supplies serving the neighbourhood of the White Abbey and within convenient reach of Kyle bridge. He also approved of the provision for a refuse depot for the town. Like his co-candidate Moore, Mr Murphy did not believe in wearing out the shoe leather and, perhaps to the relief of residents, said he would not canvass the voters as he considered that by that stage they were fully informed of the issues involved and should be let make up their minds in peace.

Something of the social contract involved between the workingmen, and the businessmen who were to represent them, was revealed by the organiser of the workingmen’s association, a Mr Hennessy. He said that he would impress on the workingmen the fact that “the best interests of their employers should be their first and last interest.” Clearly putting clear water between the working men of Kildare and their more radical brethren in the city he said that there was no dispute between workers and employers in the Kildare area because in the past they had “supported the farmers with bands and banners.” So now it was time for payback and they expected the farmers to support them with their reasonable demands. The most important of these was to be granted permanent tenure in their rented cottages so that they would have something to hand on to the next generation. They also wanted better water supply and sanitation services.

Whether the workingmen’s leaders were naïve in expecting that the rate-paying farmers would willingly press for improvements which would raise their rate bills was a question that would be answered in time. But for the moment all eyes were on the local elections scheduled for early June 1914.

The 1914 local government elections were to be the last of the triennial elections which had prevailed since the first elections in 1899.  The next local elections after 1914 were due to be held in 1917 but these were cancelled because of the Great War and thus the next council elections did not take place until 1920 in the teeth of the War of Independence. The timing of election gave rise to a major political upheaval with the Home Rulers who had held sway in the council chambers since the peaceful days of 1914 being swept aside by Sinn Féin.

 The terms between elections remained irregular until 1950 when amending legislation specified elections at five yearly intervals. However national political considerations, and glacially slow progress towards local government reform, often intervened to delay democracy at low level.  

At one stage the people of Kildare had to wait as long as eight years before electing a new County Council. Since a constitutional amendment in 1999 the term between elections has been fixed at a maximum of five years and made independent of the whims of national political machinations.  The coming elections will mark the 24th occasion on which the people of County Kildare will have elected their County Council. Leinster Leader 20 May 2014, Looking Back Series no: 383.