Michael Conway (politician)

Michael Conway (1844 – ?) was an Irish nationalist politician and a teacher. A member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for North Leitrim from 1885 to 1892 in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. He was a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell.

Conway was the son of Edward Conway of Moylough, near Tubbercurry, Co. Sligo. At the age of 13 he became a pupil teacher at St Anne’s, Blackburn, Lancashire, and after five years entered St Mary’s Training College, Hammersmith, London, which was run by the Brompton Oratory Fathers. From 1865 he was engaged in education. In 1871 he married Anne, daughter of Andrew Leonard of Aclare, Co. Sligo.

Conway was an active Irish Nationalist and President of the Blackburn, Lancashire, Branch of the Irish National League of Great Britain. On 28 October 1885 he was selected at Carrick-on-Shannon as Nationalist candidate for the new seat of North Leitrim and in the December 1885 general election by almost 10 to 1 over a Conservative. He was then returned unopposed in 1886. He appears to have remained resident in Blackburn at least for a time as he was reported as presiding at a Nationalist meeting there on 30 November 1886.

When the Irish Parliamentary Party split in December 1890 over Parnell’s leadership, Conway supported Parnell. He strongly supported Parnell in the week-long meeting of the Party in Committee Room 15 of the House of Commons. Lyons^[1] commented that he had a ‘futile altercation’ with the Anti-Parnellite Thomas Sexton, and he also clashed with Timothy Healy.

At the general election of 1892, Conway did not contest North Leitrim but fought Mid Tipperary as a Parnellite. However the Anti-Parnellite candidate won comfortably, Conway receiving just under one fifth of the vote in a three-cornered fight. He did not stand for Parliament again.^[2]

Footnotes

1. 1960, p.131
2. To date it has not proved possible to find an obituary and it is therefore not known what Conway did in later life or when he died.

Sources

• F. S. L. Lyons, The Fall of Parnell 1890-91, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960
• The Times, 27 October and 1 December 1885, 30 November 1886.
• Brian M. Walker (ed.), Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978