Timothy Quill

Quill began his Labour career as Secretary of the Macroom Labour Branch and District Executive. By the 1930s he was involved in the councils of the Labour Party.[2]

Quill was a councillor on Cork County Council at the time, having been elected in 1925. It has been said that he was recruited into the party by Labour politician and fellow Clondrohid native T.J Murphy.[13]

Quill was 26 years old at the time of the general election on 9 June 1927 and was one of 44 Labour candidates in total. While campaigning, Quill described himself as a "temperate man".[14] In June 1927, at a meeting in North Cork, Quill outlined what he believed the Labour Party stood for. Referring to the level of unemployment, he spoke about the "right to work" and the government's perceived failing of "humbler people" over the "well-to-do class".[15]

Quill was elected as a Labour Party Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork North constituency at the June 1927 general election, receiving 18% of first preference votes.[16][17][18][19][20] Slogans, such as 'Be Labour This Time' and 'Away With Slums & Mud Cabins' were featured on his election posters.[21][22] He was the youngest member of the 5th Dail.[23][24]

He was an opponent of the 1927 Public Safety Act,[25] and spoke against it during a debate on the bill in August 1927.[25]

During a finance committee debate on old age pensions in July 1927, he decried what he described as the "strict and harsh manner" of some pensions officers.[26]

Quill lost his seat at the September 1927 general election, meaning he served only three months as a TD. He received 4,123 first preference votes. T. D. Keating of the IT&GWU said that it was regrettable that Quill was not re-elected.[23]

The number of Labour candidates almost halved (from 44 to 28). Speaking on the heavy defeat for Labour in the September 1927 election, T. J. Murphy regretted that the party had lost men like Tom Johnson, who, "because of his industry and ability, would receive a place of honour in any Parliament in the world, and young men of the ability and honesty of Mr. Quill, who had been defeated in North Cork by a mere handful of votes, after making a marvellous fight against a combination of influences".[27]

Quill did not contest the 1932 general election, declining to stand at a convention in Millstreet, Cork. According to The Southern Star, it was thought Quill would be the chosen candidate, but, according to the newspaper's columnist, had "to a certain extent, lost touch with the electors of this division and he declined to accept the honour".[28] According to the Cork Examiner, having been proposed and seconded, Quill declined the nomination and asked "that some other candidate [..] be proposed".[29] In a letter published in The Southern Star in June 1933, Quill labelled criticisms leveled against him and the Labour movement as 'ignorant'.[30] As of 1936, he was Chairman of the Cork County Executive of the Labour Party.[31]

Quill contested the 1937 general election as a sitting city councillor on the Cork Corporation,[32] as one of 23 Labour candidates, receiving 14.9% of first preference votes, but was not elected. He ran again in the 1938 general election,[33] this time as one of 30 Labour candidates,[34] receiving 4,950 first preference votes (12.6%), but was once again not elected. This was to be his last general election campaign,[35] however he would remain as an elected city councillor on Cork Corporation.

According to A Biographical Dictionary of Cork, by Tim Cadogan and Jeremiah Falvey, Quill served as a councillor on Cork County Council for two periods.[5] As a Transport member, he was nominated and won a seat in 1925, retaining his seat in 1928 and lost the seat in 1934, before winning a seat again in 1942 and serving until 1945.

Quill also served as a city councillor with Cork Corporation.[36][37] The City Councillor's 1920–1945 roll book seems to record that T Quill was elected in 1936.[38] In 1939, he is listed as a member of the Labour Party's Cork Centre Branch.[39] There was a local election in the city almost every year from 1929 to 1936 to elect portions of the city council and others in 1942 and 1945.[40][41][38] Quill was at one time a member of the South Cork Board of Public Assistance.[2] He is still listed as a councillor in this book in 1944–1945.[42][43][38] While resident in the city he contested the local election for the Corporation, winning a seat in 1942, serving on both the Corporation and the County Council at the same time.

During the 1940s, Quill became chair of the Liam Mellows Branch of the Labour Party. In this capacity he proved to be an enemy of Michael O'Riordan. The branch had been established by former members of the Curragh Camp’s Communist Group. O'Riordan had retrospectively asserted that Quill was imposed as chair to ensure that Labour in Cork City could control the new branch. O'Riordan also stated that Quill had made an attack on what Quill "called 'the Jew boys' of Cork". It was during this time that the IT&GWU had disaffiliated from the Labour Party and the National Labour Party was established on the basis that communists were infiltrating the party.[44][45]

A report in the Irish Press suggests that the Administrative Council 'had become aware that certain persons in Cork were engaging in activities which appear to be inconsistent with their membership of the Labour Party and accordingly they appointed a subcommittee to investigate the membership and administration of the Liam Mellows Branch'.[46]

O’Riordan’s son, Manus, would later refer to Quill as an “anti-Semitic red-baiting villain” who was responsible for O’Riordan’s expulsion.[44]