46.9% voted for Sinn Fein in 1918. Not a majority. The IPP did not fully collapse. Over 21% voted for them, they got 6 seats. 25% went for the the Unionists and they got 22 seats. First past the post killed the IPP.
Whilst Fagan et al will be along to tell us that if some of the unopposed constituencies were ran it would have pushed the SF vote to over 50%, it is also true that in many areas Unionist candidates did not run as they knew they had little hope of winning. Additionally Sinn Fein also convinced Labour not to run. This was a disastrous long term decision by the Labour Party in Ireland. Whilst Labour at the time were nationalists, that wasn’t their core belief. It was about workers not just a flag, it was just that nationalism was the quickest way for them away from imperialism and capitalism. The growth of the Labour Party in Britain would have had some impact here, we were no where near as industrialised of course but there was a vote there. How an Irish Labour would have dealt with Ramsey MacDonald’s becoming Prime Minister in 1922? Anyway…
A big factor overlooked here aside from the fallout of the conscription threat, the war dead and some martyrdom for Republicans was the female vote (some wives of the war dead) and the general growth in the electorate (two thirds who voted in 1918 had never voted before, the electorate had grown from 700k to 2000k in 8 years). Those over 21 could vote if they were men. Unlike today’s generation who don’t value the vote they most certainly did and were more likely to go radical than some of the older heads in the IPP.
The 1918 election was a disaster in my opinion. It allowed the radical element to get in and allowed the already radicalised Unionised to exit stage left from having to deal with those pesky Catholics. We were then seen to have fired the first bullets in 1919 and further didn’t recognise the UK Parliament, we left the Unionists to play politics in London to an increasingly receptive audience and we got the Government of Ireland Act soon after. Even if the IPP had maintained their vote though, the victory for the Coalition with Andrew Bonar Law’s Conservatives having such a major say in that Government would have been bad news for Home Rule. I’d always favour Parliamentary action myself though. I agree with Bruton that John Redmond and the IPP achieved an enourmous amount for Ireland in the 30 years before 1916. I think the 1918 election sealed partition and brought unnecessary bloodshed to Ireland.
Others disagree but for the most part they just like to scream about revisionism and a person being a West Brit rather than debate.