J. G. Swift MacNeill

John Gordon Swift MacNeill (11 March 1849 – 24 August 1926) was an Irish Protestant Nationalist politician and MP, in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland for South Donegal from 1887 until 1918, Professor of Constitutional and Criminal Law at the King's Inns, Dublin, 1882–88, and Professor of the Law of Public and Private Wrongs at the National University of Ireland from 1909. He was also a well-known author on law and nationalist issues, and became a QC (Queen's Counsel) (later KC) in 1893.

Life

MacNeill was from a Church of Ireland Conservative background. He was the only son of the Rev. John Gordon Swift MacNeill, chaplain of the Richmond Bridewell, Dublin, and of Susan, daughter of the Rev. H. Tweedy, formerly Lieutenant, 7th Dragoon Guards. The 'Swift' in his name came from his descent from Godwin Swift, uncle and guardian to Jonathan Swift (1667–1745). MacNeill was educated at Trinity College Dublin and Christ Church, Oxford, and called to the Irish Bar in 1875. He never married.

As a professor of law at the King's Inns, MacNeill taught a number of Irish political leaders when they were studying for the bar, including Tim Healy, John Redmond and Willie Redmond.

On his own account, MacNeill had been from his earliest years "enthusiastic in support of the restoration of the old Irish Parliament". He joined the Home Government Association and its successor the Home Rule League when he began studying for the bar, and was a member of the Council of these organisations. He was first elected to Parliament in a by-election at South Donegal in 1887 and sat for the same seat uninterruptedly until 1918. When the Irish Parliamentary Party split over Parnell's leadership in 1890, MacNeill sided with the Anti-Parnellites. At the general elections of 1892 and 1895 he was opposed only by a Unionist candidate, and not by the Parnellites. At the subsequent four general elections he was returned unopposed, but in 1918 he was deselected as Irish Party candidate in favour of John T. Donovan, who in turn lost the seat to Sinn Féin.