Even the Unionist vote itself was not an endorsement of partiIreland should remain united, but In britain. As tne nistorlan weorge Dangerfield wrote: "On the whole, therefore, it might be said of the poor case for the exclusion of the six counties.
Fi was not the first election in which a majority of the Irish people voted for form sel-me. omniar resuus man been recorded many times during the previous hundred years — in fact, ever sunce une susa. a me er o the eighteenth century.. abolished the devolved Irish parliament and an Irish uprising. Yet the elections of 1918 were different from Sinn Fein's LIUSC morish was more extene ? any other ever endorsed by a mafor ornaletesh and demandered freedom from Britain. The success of Sinn Fein flowed from the prestige KisIng Ol 1916 which, ill-supported though it was at the time, had a powerful efTeCI on the consciousness of the Irish people.