West Donegal (UK Parliament constituency)

West Donegal
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
1885–1922
Created from	Donegal

West Donegal was a UK Parliament constituency in Ireland, returning one Member of Parliament 1885–1922.

Prior to the United Kingdom general election, 1885 the area was part of the Donegal constituency. From 1922 it was not represented in the UK Parliament.

Boundaries

This constituency comprised the western part of County Donegal.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member [1]	Party	Note
	1885, December 1	Patrick O'Hea	Irish Parliamentary	Resigned
	1890, May 30	James Joseph Dalton	Irish Parliamentary	Party split
	1890, December ^1		Irish National League
	1892, July 11	Timothy Daniel Sullivan	Irish National Federation
	1900, October 3	James Boyle	Irish Parliamentary	Resigned
	1902, April 25	Hugh Alexander Law	Irish Parliamentary
	1918, December 14 ^2	Joseph Aloysius Sweeney	Sinn Féin	Did not take his seat at Westminster
	1922, October 26	UK constituency abolished

Note:-

• ¹ Not an election, but the date of a party change. The Irish Parliamentary Party had been created in 1882, on the initiative of Charles Stewart Parnell's Irish National League. Both the IPP and the INL split into Parnellite and Anti-Parnellite factions, in December 1890. The Parnellites remained members of the Irish National League after the split and the Anti-Parnellites organised the Irish National Federation in March 1891. The two organisations and the United Irish League merged in 1900, to re-create the Irish Parliamentary Party.
• ² Date of polling day. The result was declared on 28 December 1918, to allow time for votes cast by members of the armed forces to be included in the count.

Elections

General Election 1 December 1885: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	Patrick O’Hea	unopposed
Turnout			7377
	Irish Nationalist gain from new seat		Swing

General Election 6 July 1886: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	Patrick O’Hea	unopposed
Turnout			7377
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

By-election 30 May 1890: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	James Joseph Dalton	unopposed
Turnout			5536
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

General Election 11 July 1892: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish National Federation	Timothy Daniel Sullivan	unopposed
Turnout			5279
	Irish National Federation hold		Swing

General Election 18 July 1895: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish National Federation	Timothy Daniel Sullivan	unopposed
Turnout			6254
	Irish National Federation hold		Swing

General Election 3 October 1900: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	James Boyle	unopposed
Turnout			9475
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

By-election 25 April 1902: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	Hugh Alexander Law	unopposed
Turnout			7303
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

General Election 20 January 1906: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	Hugh Alexander Law	unopposed
Turnout			6958
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

General Election 22 January 1910: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	Hugh Alexander Law	unopposed
Turnout			6642
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

General Election 10 December 1910: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Nationalist	Hugh Alexander Law	unopposed
Turnout			6642
	Irish Nationalist hold		Swing

General Election 14 December 1918: Donegal West
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Sinn Féin	John Aloysius Sweeney	6712	62.0
	Irish Nationalist	Daniel McMenamin	4116	38.0
Majority			2596	24.0
Turnout			19296	56.1
	Sinn Féin hold		Swing

References

1. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)

Sources

• Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)