Richard McGhee (1851 –7 April 1930) was an Irish

Protestant Nationalist Protestant Irish Nationalists are adherents of Protestantism in Ireland who also support Irish nationalism. Protestants have played a large role in the development of Irish nationalism since the eighteenth century, despite most Irish nationa ...

home rule Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wi ...

politician. A

Georgist Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from Land (economics), ...

Land League and

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ...

activist, he was a

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

(MP) in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was a sovereign state in the British Isles that existed between 1801 and 1922, when it included all of Ireland. It was established by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the Kingdom of Grea ...

for more than 20 years.

Family and education

McGhee was born in Lurgan,

County Armagh County Armagh (, named after its county town, Armagh) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the southern shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of an ...

in January or early February 1851, the son of a tenant farmer who later became a shopkeeper. McGhee was educated at the local school in Lurgan and then went to

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

to become an engineering

apprentice Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...

. In 1880 he married Mary Campbell, who lived until 1949. They had five sons and a daughter. One of his sons was Henry McGhee who became the Labour MP for Penistone from 1935 to 1959.

Career

McGhee was a merchant with connections to industry in

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population ...

.The Times, 14.12.10 He specialised in cutlery and stationery. In the 1880s he became involved in labour and trade union causes. He belonged to the American

Knights of Labor Knights of Labor (K of L), officially Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, was an American labor federation active in the late 19th century, especially the 1880s. It operated in the United States as well in Canada, and had chapters also ...

which had set up some branches in Britain and by 1887 was one of their organisers in

Cradley Heath Cradley Heath is a town in the Rowley Regis area of the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, West Midlands, England approximately north-west of Halesowen, south of Dudley and west of central Birmingham. Cradley Heath is often confused with t ...

in the

Black Country The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands county, England covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley, Sandwell and Walsall. Dudley and Tipton are generally considered to be the centre. It became industrialised during its ...

of the West Midlands. The Knights then sent McGhee to Glasgow to recruit new members.E Taplin, ''DNB'' McGhee stepped up his labour activism and developed an interest in radical causes, particularly

Irish Home Rule The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the ...

even though he was a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, a member of the

Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the sec ...

. He was a committed follower of the American political economist

Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist and journalist. His writing was immensely popular in 19th-century America and sparked several reform movements of the Progressive Era. He inspired the eco ...

and George's policies around land reform and was prominent in the Irish Land League. In 1889 McGhee was a co-founder of the

National Union of Dock Labourers The National Union of Dock Labourers (NUDL) was a trade union in the United Kingdom which existed between 1889 and 1922. History It was formed in Glasgow in 1889 but moved its headquarters to Liverpool within a few years and was thereafter ...

(NUDL) and was for a time its President. In 1893 McGhee resigned from the NUDL but continued to be active in related trade unionism becoming an executive council member of the International Federation of Ship, Dock and River Workers, later the

International Transport Workers' Federation The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) is a democratic global union federation of transport workers' trade unions, founded in 1896. In 2017 the ITF had 677 member organizations in 149 countries, representing a combined membership ...

and he worked with the National Union of Seamen on various campaigns to improve working conditions.

Politics

As a strong supporter of

Home Rule Home rule is government of a colony, dependent country, or region by its own citizens. It is thus the power of a part (administrative division) of a state or an external dependent country to exercise such of the state's powers of governance wi ...

, McGhee was engaged in political activity and sought a nomination for a Parliamentary seat. In March 1896 he was elected the Nationalist member for South Louth in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to ...

and he held the seat until

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...

. His by-election platform was home rule on advanced nationalist principles, the endorsement of Catholic demands on education, the complete abolition of landlordism, and support for labourers. After losing his seat in 1900 he returned to the

at the

December 1910 general election The December 1910 United Kingdom general election was held from 3 to 19 December. It was the last general election to be held over several days and the last to be held before the First World War. The election took place following the efforts o ...

to represent Mid Tyrone, beating the sitting Unionist MP, Gerald Fitzgibbon Brunskill, by a majority of 723 votes. He held the seat until it was abolished in 1918. As an MP, McGhee was described as an orthodox Irish nationalist. In 1917 one of his meetings in Omagh was broken up by

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur Gr ...

supporters.The Times, 25.9.17 McGhee supported the Irish nationalist leader

John Redmond John Edward Redmond (1 September 1856 – 6 March 1918) was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. He was best known as leader of the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) from ...

and endorsed his decision in 1914 to support the British and Allied war effort at the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and his condemnation of the

Easter rising The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with t ...

of 1916. But the reaction of the British government to the rising and the suspension of the Home Rule Act 1914 which Redmond had negotiated and which would have granted a strong measure of Home Rule, destroyed Redmond and his movement to achieve Home Rule through constitutional Parliamentary means. McGhee did not seek re-election in 1918.

Death

McGhee died at his home in Glasgow on 7 April 1930.

Family and education

Career

Politics

Death

References

Further reading