John Sweetman
Encyclopedia
John Sweetman was an Irish nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...

 politician who served as an anti-Parnellite Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MP) in the 1890s, but later radicalised. He was one of the founders of Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 and was the party's president from 1908 to 1911.

Early life

He was the eldest son of Mr John Sweetman (a Dublin brewer) and Honoria, daughter of Mr Malachy O'Connor (a Dublin merchant). He was born in County Dublin
County Dublin
County Dublin is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Dublin Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the city of Dublin which is the capital of Ireland. County Dublin was one of the first of the parts of Ireland to be shired by King John of England following the...

 and educated at Downside School
Downside School
Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent school for children aged 11 to 18, located in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, between Norton Radstock and Shepton Mallet in Somerset, south west England. It is attached to Downside Abbey...

 in Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

. He lived at Drumbaragh, Kells, County Meath
Kells, County Meath
Kells is a town in County Meath, Ireland. The town lies off the M3 motorway, from Navan and from Dublin. In recent years Kells has grown greatly with many Dublin commuters moving to the town....

. He married Agnes Hanly at the Catholic Church, Navan
Navan
-People:Navan was the childhood home of Pierce Brosnan, who appeared in the television series Remington Steele and was the fifth film actor to play James Bond. TV personality Hector Ó hEochagáin, and comedians Dylan Moran and Tommy Tiernan also hail from Navan....

, County Meath on 11 September 1895. They had six children.

Political career

In 1879 he was prominent enough in Irish nationalist circles to be a committee member and propose the election of Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...

 as president of the Irish Land League.

In 1880 he visited Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 and became involved in a scheme to settle poor Irish people in the State. On 27 December 1881 The Times published an article from 'a correspondent' (who may have been Sweetman himself) about 'An Irish Colony. Currie, Murray County, Minnesota
Murray County, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 9,165 people, 3,722 households, and 2,601 families residing in the county. The population density was 13 people per square mile . There were 4,357 housing units at an average density of 6 per square mile...

'. The article explained that John Sweetman was the Managing Director of the Irish-American Colonization Company, "the principal organizer and practical director of the emigration...in order to make the most profitable selection of lands Mr Sweetman travelled through and carefully examined the States of Dakota and Minnesota, and also Manitoba, and finally purchased some 20,000 acres (80 km²) of prairie land situated in Murray County ...".

Unfortunately the colonisation project was not a complete success, but it did help a number of people to obtain a better life in America.

The Sweetman brewery in Dublin was purchased by the Guinness family in 1891.

He was a major investor in the National Press newspaper. The Times of 3 June 1892 mentioned that "Mr John Sweetman of County Meath
County Meath
County Meath is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Mide . Meath County Council is the local authority for the county...

, who had contributed £1,000 as a donation to the fund for starting the National Press, had been unanimously selected for the Eastern Division". This was at a convention to select Nationalist candidates for the two Parliamentary constituencies in County Wicklow
County Wicklow
County Wicklow is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wicklow, which derives from the Old Norse name Víkingalág or Wykynlo. Wicklow County Council is the local authority for the county...

.

He was elected at the 1892 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1892
The 1892 United Kingdom general election was held from 4 July to 26 July 1892. It saw the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, win the greatest number of seats, but not enough for an overall majority as William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals won many more seats than in the 1886 general election...

 as MP for East Wicklow as a member of the Anti-Parnellite faction of the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...

. He became a Parnellite in 1895 and resigned the seat
Resignation from the British House of Commons
Members of Parliament sitting in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom are technically forbidden to resign. To circumvent this prohibition, a legal fiction is used...

 on 8 April 1895 by being appointed the Steward of the Manor of Northstead. At the resulting by-election 26 April 1895, he stood as a Parnellite candidate but was defeated in a closely fought three-way contest. At the general election in July 1895
United Kingdom general election, 1895
The United Kingdom general election of 1895 was held from 13 July - 7 August 1895. It was won by the Conservatives led by Lord Salisbury who formed an alliance with the Liberal Unionist Party and had a large majority over the Liberals, led by Lord Rosebery...

 he stood in North Meath
North Meath (UK Parliament constituency)
North Meath 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 Meath constituency. From 1922 it was not represented in the UK Parliament....

, where he narrowly failed to unseat the sitting anti-Parnellite MP James Gibney
James Gibney
James Gibney was an Irish Nationalist politician. An anti-Parnellite, he was Member of Parliament for North Meath from 1893 to 1900....

.

Radicalisation

By the early twentieth century he had become more radical. In 1905, speaking at the annual conference of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland
Catholic Truth Society
Catholic Truth Society is a body that prints and publishes Catholic literature, including apologetics but also prayerbooks, spiritual reading, lives of saints and so forth...

 in response to a paper suggesting the replanting of the waste lands of Ireland as a remedy to emigration, he displayed considerable hostility to the "English" government. The Times reported that he said "it was not for that society to call upon its greatest enemy, the English government, to plant forests. The English government hated the Irish nation as that of Egypt hated the Jewish nation, and they must fight the Government with all the weapons that God had given them, just as Moses had fought the Egyptians. Unfortunately they had not the power to call down the ten plagues of Egypt upon the English Government, but they could boycott England's manufactures and her Navy and Army".

He was one of the founders of Sinn Féin in 1905. He became the party's second president in 1908, succeeding Edward Martyn
Edward Martyn
Edward Martyn was an Irish political and cultural activist and playwright.-Early life:Martyn was the eldest son of John Martyn of Tullira and Annie Mary Josephine Smyth of Masonbrook, Loughrea, both in County Galway. He succeeded his father upon John's death in 1860...

, and retained the presidency until 1911 when he stepped down, to be succeeded by Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin. He served as President of Dáil Éireann from January to August 1922, and was head of the Irish delegation at the negotiations in London that produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.-Early life:...

.

He was briefly arrested and detained after the 1916 Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...

. He turned down a Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 nomination for the 1918 general election on the grounds that he was too old; his son Roger Sweetman
Roger Sweetman
Roger Sweetman was an Irish Sinn Féin politician and barrister. His father was John Sweetman.He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Wexford North constituency at the 1918 general election...

 was Teachta Dála
Teachta Dála
A Teachta Dála , usually abbreviated as TD in English, is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas . It is the equivalent of terms such as "Member of Parliament" or "deputy" used in other states. The official translation of the term is "Deputy to the Dáil", though a more literal...

 (TD) for North Wexford
North Wexford (UK Parliament constituency)
North Wexford was a United Kingdom Parliament constituency in Ireland, returning one Member of Parliament 1885–1922.Prior to 1885 the area was part of the County Wexford constituency...

 from 1918 to 1921.

Sweetman supported the Pro-Treaty faction in the Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict that accompanied the establishment of the Irish Free State as an entity independent from the United Kingdom within the British Empire....

 period but later denounced the government of W. T. Cosgrave for its abandonment of Griffith's protectionist economic policies, and supported Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...

 after 1927. Throughout his life he wrote many letters to Irish newspapers, and in the late 1920s and early 1930s he was a contributor to The Leader edited by D. P. Moran
D. P. Moran
David Patrick Moran , better known as simply D. P. Moran, was an Irish journalist, activist and cultural-political theorist, known as the principle advocate of a specifically Gaelic Catholic Irish nationalism during the early 20th century...

.

Sweetman was fiercely opposed to the Blueshirts, comparing Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy
Eoin O'Duffy was in succession a Teachta Dála , the Chief of Staff of the Irish Republican Army , the second Commissioner of the Garda Síochána, leader of the Army Comrades Association and then the first leader of Fine Gael , before leading the Irish Brigade to fight for Francisco Franco during...

 to Hitler. He also opposed plans to build a Catholic Cathedral in Merrion Square
Merrion Square
Merrion Square is a Georgian square on the southside of Dublin city centre. It was laid out after 1762 and was largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. It is considered one of the city's finest surviving squares...

, where he himself lived, on the grounds that this would cause great trouble and inconvenience to the residents.

He died in Dublin in 1936.

Sources

  • Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Vol. II 1886-1918, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1978)
  • The Times (of London), editions of 27 December 1881, 5 April 1889, 3 June 1892, 5 July 1892, 10 April 1895, 17 September 1895 and 13 October 1905 and 10 September 1936.

External links

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