30 Facts About Joseph Devlin

Joseph Devlin was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician.

Joseph Devlin was a Member of Parliament for the Irish Parliamentary Party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

Later Devlin was an MP and leader of the Nationalist Party in the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

Joseph Devlin was referred to as "the duodecimo Demosthenes" by the Irish politician Tim Healy which Devlin took as a compliment.

Joseph Devlin became associated with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which he helped to establish in the 1890s.

Joseph Devlin became a lifelong opponent of its loyalist counterpart, the Orange Order.

Joseph Devlin then worked at Samuel Young MP's brewery company, for which he was assistant manager of Kelly's Cellars, a Belfast pub, until 1902.

When William O'Brien founded the United Irish League in County Mayo in 1898, Joseph Devlin founded the UIL section in Belfast which became his political machine in Ulster.

Joseph Devlin was elected unopposed as Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament for Kilkenny North in the February 1902 by-election.

Already secretary of the London-based United Irish League of Great Britain Joseph Devlin became General Secretary of O'Brien's UIL, replacing John O'Donnell, through the initiative of deputy IPP leader John Dillon MP, with whom he held a close alliance and who had fallen under his influence.

Joseph Devlin had risen in the ranks of the League from being a local Nationalist organiser in Belfast to becoming the only newcomer to the parliamentary party who was accepted politically, as an equal by the established leaders.

Joseph Devlin was devoted to Dillon who had helped him greatly to his rise to prominence, and Dillon in turn relied greatly on him, not alone for both his control of the UIL and the AOH, but because he was an outstanding representative of Ulster Nationalism.

Joseph Devlin became a distinguished parliamentarian and had reached the top by the skilful use of two remarkable talents, his persuasive and very powerful oratory, and secondly, that he was a great organisation man, not merely as General Secretary of the United Irish League, but because he dominated the Ancient Order of Hibernians.

Joseph Devlin was the only member of the younger generation to belong to the innermost circle of the IPP leadership and was widely seen as eventual heir-apparent.

For some years Joseph Devlin had been in bitter conflict with the bishops' Catholic Association who wanted politics based on Catholic rights rather than on nationalism.

Joseph Devlin represented the main urban and national business interests, which contrasted with his advocacy of social reforms when he took up labour issues especially working conditions in the linen mills and textile trades.

Joseph Devlin became governor of the nationalist hinterland after his AOH political machinery rapidly saturated the country, acting through the UIL as the militant support organisation of the Irish Party.

Joseph Devlin saw loyalty to the Empire as part of the deal for home rule.

Joseph Devlin avoided any involvement in All-Ireland politics having accepted that the mandate had passed to Sinn Fein.

Joseph Devlin, who represented a more moderate nationalist view, was elected for both Antrim and Belfast West.

Joseph Devlin chose to sit for Belfast West although his seat in the seven member Antrim constituency was left vacant for the rest of the Parliament.

Joseph Devlin continued to sit at Westminster as leader of the Nationalist Party of Northern Ireland, as both small parties did not recognise the Stormont parliament.

Joseph Devlin's Belfast Falls seat was abolished in 1922, when Devlin unsuccessfully fought Liverpool Exchange; he returned to Westminster in 1929.

Joseph Devlin was re-elected by a large majority in Belfast West in 1925 when he decided to lead his small party out of abstentionism and sat for the first time in the Parliament of Northern Ireland as head of a powerless opposition.

Joseph Devlin sought to highlight Catholic grievances, especially in relation to education.

Joseph Devlin was returned for the four member constituency until Proportional Representation by the Single Transferable Vote was abolished for territorial constituencies and single member seats were introduced for the 1929 election.

From 1929 until his death, Joe Joseph Devlin was the Northern Ireland MP for Belfast Central.

Joseph Devlin won amendment to the Northern Ireland Education Act of 1930 which improved the funding of Catholic schools.

Joseph Devlin lived most of his life in Belfast, though he spent some earlier years in London.

An acknowledged spokesman and leader of Catholic nationalists in Ulster for decades, Joseph Devlin died in Belfast on 18 January 1934.