1. Laurence Ginnell was an Irish nationalist politician, lawyer and Member of Parliament of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party for Westmeath North at the 1906 UK general election.
Laurence Ginnell was self-educated and was called to the Irish bar as well as the Bar of England and Wales.
Laurence Ginnell was elected an MP in 1906, took his seat at Westminster and swore allegiance to Edward VII.
The strategy that Laurence Ginnell pursued was the Down's Policy, or cattle driving, a proceeding designed to harass the prosperous grazier interests, whose 'ranches' occupied large, under populated and under worked tracts.
In 1909, Laurence Ginnell was expelled from the Irish Parliamentary Party for the offence of asking to see the party accounts after which he sat as an Independent Nationalist.
Laurence Ginnell visited many of the prisoners who were interned in various prisons in Wales and England.
Laurence Ginnell was imprisoned in March 1918 for encouraging land agitation and later deported to Reading Gaol.
Laurence Ginnell was one of the few people to have served in the House of Commons and in the Oireachtas.
Laurence Ginnell was appointed Director of Propaganda in the Second Ministry of the Irish Republic.
Laurence Ginnell carried out his propaganda work here to distribute copies of the Irish Bulletin and to provide the Sinn Fein version of the conflict during the War of Independence.
Laurence Ginnell travelled back to Argentina some months later to serve as the Representative of the Republic there.
Laurence Ginnell opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty that was ratified by the Dail in January 1922, and was elected as an anti-Treaty Sinn Fein TD at the 1922 general election on the eve of the Irish Civil War.
On 9 September 1922, Laurence Ginnell was the only anti-Treaty TD to attend the inaugural meeting of the Provisional Parliament or Third Dail.
Laurence Ginnell was at that point interrupted but resumed by saying that he would sign the roll and take his seat in the Assembly if the Assembly were Dail Eireann.
Laurence Ginnell was informed he was not allowed raise any such question until a Ceann Comhairle had been elected.
Laurence Ginnell returned to the United States soon afterwards to serve as the Republic's envoy in the country.
Laurence Ginnell ordered Robert Briscoe and some of his friends to take possession of the Consular Offices in Nassau Street, New York City, then in the hands of the Free State Government, to obtain the list of the subscribers to the bond drive organized to aid the struggle in the War of Independence.
Laurence Ginnell died in the United States on 17 April 1923, aged 71, still campaigning against the Anglo-Irish Treaty.