Episode 17 - Panel 5a - Mapping constituencies of Southern Unionist electoral support 1885-1932 - Jack Kavanagh, Neale Rooney & Martin Charlton

This paper sets out to identify areas of significant Unionist electoral support in ‘Southern’ Ireland. This paper is deliberately refraining from an examination of the six predominantly Unionist counties in Ulster, and will instead examine Unionist support in the rest of Ireland. This paper will start in 1885 as the controversy over the Home Rule bill, 1886 led to a significant change in how candidates identified themselves in elections in Ireland. Prior to 1885, electoral candidates did not use the term ‘Unionist’ but instead were divided between Liberals, Conservatives, and the Irish Parliamentary Party / Home Rule. After 1885 the term ‘Unionist’ became increasingly used by electoral candidates throughout Ireland in subsequent elections. Due to the changes between the different voting systems utilised in Ireland between 1885 and 1932, it is necessary to divide this paper into three distinct sections; the eight UK general elections between 1885 and 1918, the five Irish general elections for Dáil Éireann between 1922 and 1932, and the two Séanad Éireann elections of 1922 and 1925. The main outcomes for this paper can be summarised in the following questions: - Did areas with significant Unionist voters switch over and vote for pro-Treaty candidates in the Irish Free State period, 1922 - 1932 - Are the areas of significant Unionist voters also areas with a large minority of Protestant / non-Catholic voters - Did the short-lived elected Séanad Éireann provide an electoral outlet for Loyalist / Unionist voters during the Irish Free State period - Using the statistical programming language R is it possible to visualise the different results chronologically and provide greater clarity on the levels of support of Unionist candidates even if they did not win the general election. The maps utilised in this talk are available at the following link https://rpubs.com/jackakav/291516 in addition to the R code utilised to create the map projections. Neale Rooney (BA History and Media Studies, MA Digital Humanities) is a researcher based with the Letters of 1916 project. His previous experience with Digital Humanities includes work done on the Contested Memories: Battle of Mount Street Bridge and The Woodman Diary projects. Jack Kavanagh (BA History, MPhil Public History and Cultural Heritage) is a PhD candidate at An Foras Feasa, Maynooth University. His previous experience includes the ‘1916 Necrology’ at Glasnevin Trust and the ‘St Andrews School Books Project’ a collaboration between Trinity College Dublin and the St. Andrews Resource Centre. Martin Charlton is currently Senior Research Associate in the National Centre for Geocomputation at Maynooth University. He previously worked at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, as Research Associate and Senior Research in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, and then as Lecturer in the Department of Geography. He is a graduate of Newcastle University. He is one of the co-developers of Geographically Weighted Regression.