Cork City Council Centenary: When Tomás MacCurtain was elected Lord Mayor of Cork

In this year of significant commemorations, Dr Aodh Quinlivan of UCC’s Centre for Local and Regional Governance recalls the Cork Corporation elections of January 15, 1920, and the first meeting of the Corporation on January 30, at which the doomed Sinn Féin man became the city’s first citizen

Ahead of the local municipal elections for Cork Corporation on January 15, 1920, the Cork Examiner (2 January) noted that interest in the elections was gathering pace but, “with so many varied parties involved, it will be difficult to forecast anything like an approximate result, a difficulty that will be greatly increased by the introduction of the P.R. (proportional representation) system”.