Political Life
MacNeill was released from prison in 1917 and was elected Member of Parliament for the National University of Ireland and Londonderry City constituencies for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election. In line with abstentionist Sinn Féin policy, he refused to take his seat in the British House of Commons and sat instead in the newly-convened Dáil Éireann. He was also a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Londonderry during 1921–25 although he never took his seat.
In 1921 he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1922 he was in a minority of pro-Treaty delegates at the Irish Race Convention in Paris. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State, he became Minister for Education in its first government. However his family was split on the issue. His younger son, Brian, took the anti-Treaty side and was killed in fighting near Sligo by Irish Army troops during the Irish Civil War in September 1922. Another of his sons served as an officer in the Free State's National Army.
His brother James was the second last Governor-General of the Irish Free State.
Read more about this topic: Eoin MacNeill
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