Thomas Harbison

For the American botanist, see Thomas Grant Harbison.

Thomas James Stanislaus Harbison (8 November 1864 – 22 November 1930) was an Irish nationalist politician.

He was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, to John Harbison, a general merchant, and Isabella Daly.^[1]

Harbison studied at St Malachy's College in Belfast. He became active in the Irish Parliamentary Party, acting from 1906 until 1910 as the election agent for William Redmond and Tom Kettle. In 1911, he was elected to Tyrone County Council.

After attending the Irish Convention, he was elected to Westminster at the 1918 East Tyrone by-election, after Redmond resigned it to contest Waterford City. At the 1918 general election, Harbison was elected in North East Tyrone. Speaking in the House of Commons on (11 November 1920), the day that the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was passed, Harbison made clear his feelings on the Act and the Partition of Ireland:

"This is not a Bill for the better government of Ireland. I believe that the people in the county that I represent would be legally justified in using every form of resistance in their power to prevent this Act, if it ever becomes an Act, from coming into operation. It is a sentence of death, in my opinion, upon us as a unit in that Parliament. Our liberties are gone; and if the younger men of Ireland become indignant, and take courses that no sane man could defend, who will be responsible? The responsibility will be upon the men who have produced this Bill at the dictates of a narrow-minded set of reactionaries in the North-East corner of Ulster. It is a very small corner of Ulster; I have the map of it here. A set of reactionaries in that corner will have us under their heel for all time. I know the feeling of the men whom I represent, and I assure you, on this Armistice night, when all should be peace, that you are going to create, not peace, but eternal dissatisfaction, division, and, I am afraid, destruction."

^[2]

At the 1921 Northern Ireland general election, Harbison was elected on an abstentionist platform in Fermanagh and Tyrone.^[3] In 1922, he was elected in the Westminster constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone along with Cahir Healy for the Nationalist Party. With majorities of more than 6,000 votes over the Unionist candidates, their elections were seen as a plebiscite on the issue of the partition of Ireland.^[4] He stood down from the Westminster seat at the 1924 election, and in 1927 took his seat at Stormont. In 1929, he stood down from his Stormont seat, but was again elected to Westminster, serving until his death a year later.

References

1. "General Registrar's Office". IrishGenealogy.ie. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
2. Harbison, Thomas (11 November 1920). Government of Ireland Bill (Speech). debate. UK House of Parliament: Hansard. Retrieved 21 March 2023.
3. Macardle, Dorothy (1965). The Irish Republic. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 799.
4. Phoenix, Eamon & Parkinson, Alan (2010), Conflicts in the North of Ireland, 1900-2000, Four Courts Press, Dublin, Pg 142, ISBN 978 1 84682 189 9

Sources

• Northern Ireland Parliament Elections Results: Biographies

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Thomas Harbison
• "Harbison, Thomas J. S." . Thom's Irish Who's Who . Dublin: Alexander Thom and Son Ltd. 1923. p. 103  – via Wikisource.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by William Redmond	Member of Parliament for East Tyrone Apr. 1918–Nov. 1918	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for North East Tyrone 1918–1922	Constituency abolished
New constituency	Member of Parliament for Fermanagh & Tyrone 1922–1924 With: Cahir Healy	Succeeded by James Pringle Charles Falls
Preceded by James Pringle Charles Falls	Member of Parliament for Fermanagh & Tyrone 1929–1930 With: Joseph Devlin	Succeeded by Cahir Healy
Parliament of Northern Ireland
New parliament	Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and Tyrone 1921–1929 With: Arthur Griffith 1921–1922 William Coote 1921–1924 Seán Milroy 1921–1925 William Thomas Miller 1921–1929 James Cooper 1921–1929 Seán O'Mahony 1921–1925 Alexander Donnelly 1925–1929 Rowley Elliott 1925–1929 Cahir Healy 1925–1929 John McHugh 1925–1929	Constituency divided