I wonder how many county councils have observed the centenary this year of the foundation of county councils as a system of local government in Ireland by issuing a booklet. South Tipperary County Council has done so in 182 pages crammed with detail and compiled by the journalist Brendan Long, retired editor of the Clonmel Nationalist. In a far-off time some student, striving for a PhD on Irish local government, will surely reach for this volume.
By a decision of the British Government in 1899, county councils replaced the anti-democratic system of Grand Juries, whose members were selected from the elite landlord class. Some of the old landlord representatives were elected to the new councils, but they were distinctly in the minority. From 1899 until 1920 the new county councils and their subsidiary committees were dominated by the Irish Parliamentary Party under John Redmond, which was, in turn, swept away by Sinn Fein, which, after the Treaty, split into two parties, Cumann na nGael and Fianna Fail.
Qualified engineer
There can be little doubt that the new councils, at least on some occasions, abused their power. For instance, Tom Meade, a qualified engineer and an applicant for the county surveyorship of South Tipperary in 1920, and the only one of three applicants deemed to be qualified, received only two votes, while the unqualified candidates obtained 13 and 12 votes respectively.
The council proceeded to appoint, in a temporary capacity, one of the unqualified applicants, but the Local Government Board insisted on Mr Meade being appointed, and after some prevarication the council agreed.
Understandably, much of the material in this volume will be of interest to South Tipperary people only, but there are nuggets of interest for the general reader. For instance, Brendan Long tells of a meeting in Cahir which he covered as a young reporter, and at which the guest speaker, James Dillon TD, unburdened himself of the opinion that the vocation to serve in the sphere of politics was second only to that of the priesthood. Again, an interesting fact supplied by Martin Maher, the county librarian, is that not one Carnegie Library was built in Co Tipperary and that no Carnegie Libraries were built in 21 of the 32 counties in Ireland. (Andrew Carnegie, a very wealthy Scotsman who rose from humble origins, was a pioneering influence on the public library movement in Great Britain and Ireland.)
A "No Rates" campaign, which stemmed from the Economic War and which left many public bodies without necessary funds, resulted in some county councils being dissolved, and South Tipperary was one of these. Mr P. J. Meghen, a Dublin man and a qualified engineer, was appointed Commissioner to administer the affairs of South Tipperary from 1934 until 1942, when the council was restored.
Bizarre incident
Paddy Meghen, whom I knew well, went on to become County Manager of Limerick where, in co-operation with the late Canon Hayes, founder of Muintir na Tire, he did great work in setting up parish councils.
The 1940 County Management Act, and still with us today, with minor amendments, was the biggest development in local government history. There are those who disagree with it, but by and large it has stood the test of time and is likely to remain. For one thing, it cuts out the opportunity of councils to abuse their power.
Quite the most bizarre incident in this volume relates to the appointment of a rate collector by the county council which ended up in the Central Criminal Court in Dublin and involved the alleged kidnapping of a county councillor. The prosecution alleged on the word of the county councillor that on his way to the county council meeting in Clonmel, he had been forcibly detained, driven to Cork for the day, plied with food and drink, and abandoned in the city, the whole idea being to prevent him casting his vote. The defence claimed that the councillor had consented to being taken to Cork - and that the trip had been his own idea, in order to avoid having to vote at all.
Promised vote
Its case was that the councillor had promised his vote to one applicant for the rate collectorship, but could not deliver, because the political party to which he belonged had directed him to vote for somebody else. By his absence, the man to whom he had given his promise stood a chance of getting the job.
The case lasted for a full week and occupied 40 columns of print in the local newspaper, necessitating the publication of a supplement.
Mr Justice Haugh, summing up, said he could not see the two stories in the case being reconciled. After 35 minutes, the jury returned with a verdict acquitting the accused.
Mr Gerry Clarke, later Mr Justice Clarke, for the defence, in his address to the jury, made the trite comment that Somerville and Ross would have found a very good subject for a long yarn in this case. "The facts are unusual and amusing and possibly could not come out of any other country except the Irish countryside."