Decline
By 1951, the League was in decline. It was short of funds, and there was reduced attendance at its meetings. The British section was also struggling, and motions to its conference called for it to prioritise recruitment and propaganda over attacks on other parties. It stood only one candidate at the 1951 UK general election.
The party organised a march through Derry on St Patrick's Day 1951, displaying the flag of the Republic of Ireland. The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) attempted to seize the flag, and several League members were arrested. A repeat was organised a year later, with a far larger turnout. This time, the RUC used violence to break up the march.
Conventions were again organised to select candidates for the Northern Ireland general election, 1953. McAteer was selected for Foyle in place of Paddy Maxwell, who had abstentionist tendencies. Most constituencies chose MPs who pledged to attend the Parliament, but McGleenan was again selected in South Armagh, and delegates in Mid Tyrone chose Liam Kelly, a jailed republican. Sitting Nationalist MP Edward McCullagh stood against Kelly, in defiance of the convention, but was narrowly defeated. In Mid Londonderry, Nationalist Paddy Gormley beat the APL candidate. Gormley declared that the APL was now felt to be discredited.
Despite the success of Kelly and McGleenan at the election, most of the abstentionists left the League. The executive was reorganised, McAteer becoming Chairman, McSparran President, and Paddy McGill was appointed as the new Secretary.
At the Mid Ulster by-election, 1956, the League stood Michael O'Neill in an attempt to unseat abstentionist MP Tom Mitchell, but this split the nationalist vote and independent Unionist George Forrest was elected.
In late 1956, the Committee announced their intention to resign. No candidates were nominated to replace them, and the League became moribund. Some local clubs became branches of the Nationalist Party, while the remnants of the British section became the United Irish Association. Frank Traynor became the Acting Secretary of the League, and he organised a final meeting in Belfast on 2 December 1958. McGill ordered McAteer to closely watch the meeting to ensure that it did not discuss policy, worrying that Traynor would try to cause trouble for the Nationalist Party. The meeting wound up the organisation and distributed its funds.
In 1959, National Unity was founded by former APL members who called for the Nationalist Party to take a new, more active approach.
Read more about this topic: Irish Anti-Partition League
Famous quotes containing the word decline:
“Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride—they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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“Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements, and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end result of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)