After Dissolution
The results, while a triumph for the republicans, showed that the IPP's politics still had a significant constituency across the island. In the North East, and especially in Belfast, the IPP had more or less held their ground against the Sinn Féin insurgency, (Éamon de Valera soundly beaten by Joe Devlin in the Falls division). The IPP regrouped to become the Nationalist Party of Northern Ireland.
In the South after the Irish Civil War, the political estate of the Irish Party inherited by Sinn Féin evolved into the two nationalist parties of the post-1922 state. On the pro-Treaty side, some Cumann na nGaedheal / Fine Gael leaders (apart from James Dillon) had 'Redmonite' backgrounds, the most notable being John A. Costello, a later Taoiseach. The core of this party group was however solidly Sinn Féin, IRB and IRA in background. On the anti-Treaty Sinn Féin side that developed into Fianna Fáil, there was no continuity with the Irish Party at elite level. Many former AOH/IPP followers also lingered on as a pro-Treaty support organisation, some AOH adherents later fought on the Francoist side in the Spanish Civil War, the quasi-fascist Blueshirt movement of the 1930s maybe owing much to its Ribbon tradition. Veteran MP Timothy Michael Healy was the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State (1922–1928), an enlightened choice to bridge the gap between the old order and the new generation of Cumann na nGaedheal politicians, although highly partisan (his nephew was Minister for Justice Kevin O'Higgins; Healy made a public attack on Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera, which led to republican calls for his resignation). Former party MP Hugh Law was elected as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD during the 1920s.
The conservative nationalist National League Party operated between 1926 and 1931, founded by former IPP MPs Captain William Redmond (son of Irish National League and IPP leader John Redmond) and Thomas O'Donnell. It quickly faltered, with many of its prominent members (including Redmond, Vincent Rice, John Jinks and James Coburn) joining Cumann na nGaedheal / Fine Gael, although O'Donnell became an active member of Fianna Fáil. A short lived National Centre Party was formed in 1932, absorbing the remnants of the conservative Farmers' Party and led by Frank MacDermot and James Dillon (son of IPP leader John Dillon). The success of Fianna Fáil prompted the National Centre Party to amalgamate with Cumann na nGaedheal to become Fine Gael in 1933. Both MacDermot and Dillon later left Fine Gael, and both argued for Irish entry into World War II in the Allied side, but MacDermot joined Fianna Fáil while Dillon returned to Fine Gael and became party leader 1959-1965.
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Famous quotes containing the word dissolution:
“The most dangerous aspect of present-day life is the dissolution of the feeling of individual responsibility. Mass solitude has done away with any difference between the internal and the external, between the intellectual and the physical.”
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