Liam de Róiste

Liam de Róiste (1882 – 15 May 1959) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician, diarist and Gaelic scholar.^[1]

He was a member of the Irish Volunteers and fought in the Easter Rising in 1916 with the Cork City Battalion.^[2] He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Cork City constituency at the 1918 general election.^[3] In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled at the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann, though de Róiste was unable to attend.^[4]

De Róiste opposed the Belfast Boycott stating in a 1920 Dáil debate; "it would mean having to purchase English-made goods instead of Belfast-made articles. Economic penetration was the solution of the Ulster question.^[5]

In April, 1921 while staying at a neighbours for fear of assassination, the family home was stormed by a party of Black and Tans. A personal friend and Catholic priest, James O'Callaghan, evidently mistaken for his host, was shot and killed while investigating the disturbance downstairs.^[6][7] The intruders left unopposed.

De Róiste was re-elected without contest at the 1921 elections for the Cork Borough constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was again re-elected in the 1922 general election as a member of pro-Treaty Sinn Féin. He did not stand at the 1923 general election but stood unsuccessfully as a Cumann na nGaedheal candidate at the June 1927 general election.^[8]

In his private life he was Secretary and Director of the Irish International Trading Corporation, Cork, and an author.^[3]

References

1. "The First World War And Ireland". Waterford County Museum. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
2. "Cork City Battalion Roster". Wickham & McKiernan genealogy website. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
3. "Mr. Liam de Róiste". Oireachtas Members Database. Retrieved 10 April 2009.
4. "Roll call of the first sitting of the First Dáil". Dáil Éireann Historical Debates (in Irish). 21 January 1919. Retrieved 19 February 2008.
5. "Dáil Éireann - Volume 1 - 06 August, 1920". Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas. Retrieved 17 August 2009.
6. O'Donoghue, Florence; Josephine O'Donoghue (2006). John Borgonovo, ed. Florence and Josephine O'Donoghue's War of Independence: a destiny that shapes our ends. Irish Academic Press. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-7165-3370-2.
7. Borgonovo, John (2007). Spies, informers and the "Anti-Sinn Féin Society": the intelligence war in Cork city, 1920-1921. Irish Academic Press. p. 111. ISBN 978-0-7165-2833-3. Retrieved 2009-08-17.
8. "Liam de Róiste". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 10 April 2009.