1919 Sligo Corporation election
15 January 1919
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All 24 seats on Sligo Corporation 13 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||
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Map showing results by electoral area | |||||||||||||||||
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An election for all 24 members of Sligo Corporation took place on 15 January 1919, using the single transferable vote (STV). At that time, Urban districts in Ireland held annual elections on 15 January each year, and under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, plurality voting was used to replace a cohort of one-third or one-quarter of each city's councillors. Due to the First World War, elections in the years between 1915 and 1919 were suspended.
| Sligo Corporation Act 1918 | |
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| Act of Parliament | |
| Long title | An Act to amend the provisions for the local management of the borough of Silgo and to extend the rating powers of the Corporation of the borough and to extend the power of the Corporation to borrow and re-borrow moneys and to provide for the payment by the Corporation of the expenses incurred in meeting the demands of the county council of the county of Sligo and to confer on the Local Government Board for Ireland further powers of control in regard to the performance of their respective duties by the Corporation and the officers thereof and to amend the provisions relating to the election and duration in office of the aldermen and councillors of the borough and for other purposes. |
| Citation | 8 & 9 Geo. 5. c. xxiii |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 30 July 1918 |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The Sligo election was held under the Sligo Corporation Act 1918, a local act passed in the UK Parliament under the sponsorship of the Sligo Ratepayers Association (SRA), an alliance of Protestants and businessmen which opposed the actions of the outgoing corporation. The election under the 1918 Act was exempt from the general postponement.
The use of STV in Sligo in 1919 was the first use of a proportional representation electoral system to elect city councillors in the United Kingdom. For that reason, it was observed with interest across the United Kingdom, and it was commented on later as far away as western Canada.
Sligo was divided into three wards, each electing eight councillors. The SRA ran 18 candidates (11 Protestant unionists and 7 Catholic nationalists), six in each ward, and won 8 seats (electing five Protestants and three Catholics). It had support from four elected Independent councillors, for a combined total of 12 seats.
Sinn Féin, Labour, and a pro-Sinn Féin Independent Nationalist councillor won a majority, with a combined 13-seat total.
Sligo's use of STV was the second use of STV in an election in Ireland. The first occasion was to fill the Dublin University seats in 1918.
Sligo's election was seen as a success. The editor of the Sligo Champion newspaper wrote "It was really a model election. Throughout the whole process of counting and transferring, not one single mistake occurred. This is of course a tribute to the efficiency of the staff as well as to the manner in which every stage of the count automatically checks itself. It was very plain, very simple, and it means more for the elector than he was ever able to boast of before... It is a big improvement, and it is absolutely fair."
The election was seen as a vindication of STV. Subsequently, with the passage of the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919, STV was adopted for all Irish local authorities. This came into effect for the 1920 local elections. The 1918 Act envisaged triennial elections in Sligo, as the 1919 Act did throughout Ireland. In the event, the Irish War of Independence, Irish Civil War, and their aftermaths meant the next local elections were not held until 1925.