William Doris
Encyclopedia
William Doris was an Irish politician, Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

, and co-founder of The Mayo News
Mayo News
The Mayo News is a weekly local newspaper published in Westport in the Republic of Ireland. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the paper had an average weekly circulation of 10,315 during 2005...

.

Biography

Doris was a solicitor in Dublin, active in Nationalist politics from the 1880s when he was assistant secretary of the Irish National Land League
Irish National Land League
The Irish Land League was an Irish political organization of the late 19th century which sought to help poor tenant farmers. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on...

, and in this role was arrested in November 1881 and imprisoned for six months in Dundalk jail. On 3 December 1892 The Mayo News a local newspaper in Mayo, was co-founded by William and his brother Patrick Doris. The price of The Mayo News was one penny.

In 1898, Mayo County Council
Mayo County Council
Mayo County council is the local authority which is responsible for County Mayo in Ireland. The Council is responsible for Housing and Community, Roads and Transportation, Urban planning and Development, Amenity and Culture, and Environment. The county council is governed by the Local Government...

 was set up under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...

. Doris was chairman of Westport UDC 1899-1910 and vice-chairman of Mayo County Council 1900-08, speaking at the latter's first meeting on 22 April 1899.

Political career

William Doris was a Member of Parliament for the constituency of West Mayo
West Mayo (UK Parliament constituency)
West Mayo was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 to 1922....

 from 15 January 1910 to 14 December 1918 as a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...

. His defeat of William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...

 in West Mayo in 1910 was a decisive defeat for O'Brien's All-for-Ireland League
All-for-Ireland League
The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...

. Doris was first recorded in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, Westminster, on 15 March 1910 on the topic of Old Age Pensions (Ireland). He was last recorded in the Commons, on 14 November 1918 under the topic of Evicted Tenants. He was a Whip of the Irish Parliamentary Party under the leadership of John Redmond during this period.

Like the rest of the Irish Party, William Doris supported the United Kingdom during the First World War, and this led to alienation from his brother Patrick.

In letters to the Irish Independent
Irish Independent
The Irish Independent is Ireland's largest-selling daily newspaper that is published in both compact and broadsheet formats. It is the flagship publication of Independent News & Media.-History:...

 in 1924, William Doris wrote a stout defence of the Irish Parliamentary Party in relation to Irish partition. He pointed out that one of the principal consequences of the Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin is a left wing, Irish republican political party in Ireland. The name is Irish for "ourselves" or "we ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone". Originating in the Sinn Féin organisation founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith, it took its current form in 1970...

 policy of refusing to take up seats in the Westminster Parliament was that the establishment of a Protestant-dominated parliament in Northern Ireland in the Government of Ireland Act 1920 went through with little opposition. '...the handing over of the lives and properties, and the social, political, commercial and religious interests of 350,000 Catholics and Nationalists in the North to the tender mercies of an Orange parliament in Belfast has been the direct result of the destruction of the Irish Party in 1918. The 1920 Partition Act was carried because there was nobody to oppose it.' The Independent refused to print Doris's letters in full, and they were therefore printed by his former Parliamentary colleague J. P. Hayden
John Patrick Hayden
John Patrick Hayden was an Irish nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party represented South Co. Roscommon from 1897 to 1918. He was also editor and proprietor of the Westmeath Examiner,...

 in his newspaper, the Westmeath Examiner
Westmeath Examiner
The Westmeath Examiner is a broadsheet newspaper in Westmeath, Ireland. It was founded in 1882. The Westmeath Examiner is a sister paper of the Westmeath Independent which circulates in the Athlone area of the county. The Westmeath Examiner circulates in the north of the county and is based in...

, 5 July 1924, under the heading 'The Canker of Partition'.

Doris Street
Doris Street
Doris Street in Ringsend in Dublin 4 in Ireland was named after William Doris, an Irish Member of Parliament and Chief Whip of the Irish Parliamentary Party ....

in Irishtown in Dublin 4 was named after William Doris.
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