It was dealt with in-house. He was a great man. He argued his case. He came here four times and finally, sensibly, we bowed to modern reality and we let him in.
Before I sit down, I shall give another historical example that shows how generous we have been. Arthur Alfred Lynch was an Irish nationalist MP for Galway city. He was tried and convicted for high treason. He fought on the Boer side during the South African war; he fought against us. He was sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life, and he was pardoned in 1907. As an astounding testament of our legacy of clemency and tolerance in this country, he was readmitted to the House in 1909 when West Clare returned him to
Parliament. Indeed, the King even commissioned him a colonel in the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the great war.
I am sorry to give these historical examples, but they just show how extraordinarily generous we have been to people who honestly disagreed with us, and even fought against us in a war, but then were returned by their constituents. We said, “Yes, all right, you have made your point, but you are an honourable man so we’ll let you in.”