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John Jinks T.D. Is it true that phrase Jinxed originated with him

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    #62
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Rumour has it that Mrs Jinks once inspected a bands flutes in her pub.


    It appears that, like many politicians before and since, Jinks owned a pub. He was also in the practice, common then, of hiring a band to parade through the town before rallies. So that, at one such event, he hired the Manorhamilton Fife Drum Band; and afterwards, naturally, treated them to drinks on the house.
    Unfortunately, some people took advantage of the offer, or so his wife thought. After serving several rounds for the musicians, Mrs Jinks became suspicious about their numbers. Whereupon she shouted: “No more free drink for any man unless he has his flute in his hand.” The sequel to this event is not recorded, but one can only hope the poor woman’s innocence was not further disabused.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/1211/1224285297614.html


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    #63
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    Of course, the demise of the Sunday Tribune occured shortly after this was published.
    John Jinks' boozy lunch



    Shortly after the "empty formula" episode, De Valera sought to put pressure on Cosgrave and his government, which was now a minority with just 47 of the 153 seats. De Valera was eager to topple his bitter political rivals Cumann na nGaedheal so he offered support to the Labour Party, which had 22 deputies, if its leader, Tom Johnson, could put a coalition together.


    Along with a number of smaller political groupings such as the National League, Labour placed a motion of no-confidence for 16 August 1927. Given the support of the 44 Fianna Fáil deputies, Johnson's motion seemed guaranteed to succeed. But on the day of the vote, government TD and former unionist MP Major Bryan Cooper bumped into the National League TD for Sligo, John Jinks.


    Cooper quickly detected Jinks' unhappiness at the prospect of voting with De Valera and invited him to lunch to discuss the matter further. Cooper then plied Jinks with alcohol over the lunch and escorted him in a befuddled state to Westland Row train station.


    As the vote on the confidence motion was taken later that afternoon, Jinks was snoozing on the train to Sligo. The vote was tied at 72 votes for and against the motion and the Ceann Comhairle Michael Hayes' casting vote saved Cosgrave and his government.


    Jinks made headlines in publications across the world, including Time magazine.

    http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news/article/2011/jan/23/pistols-at-dawn-and-high-jinks-some-other-gubu-mom/

    It didn't happen.


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    #64
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    So what type of legacy did Alderman Jinks leave.

    Did his housing scheme at the Barracks get off the ground .

    CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - WITHDRAWAL OF MOTOR PERMIT.
    asked the Minister for Finance if he will state why the permission given to Mr. Michael McGovern, Hotel Proprietor, of Garrison, to cross the Border at Belleek into Saorstát Eireann, in his private mo...morebtn.gif
    When will I get an answer?morebtn.gif
    CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - LEITRIM AND SLIGO DRAINAGE SCHEMES.
    asked the Minister for Finance whether he can state when the Board of Works purpose commencing operations on schemes approved by the County Councils under the Arterial Drainage Act, 1925, in the Count...morebtn.gif
    CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. ORAL ANSWERS. - SLIGO MILITARY BARRACKS.
    asked the Minister for Finance to state on what terms he is prepared to lease to the Sligo Corporation for the purposes of a housing scheme the grounds of the old Military Barracks, situate in Barrack...morebtn.gif
    Am I to take it that the Corporation will get the barracks free?morebtn.gif
    When the British military vacated the barracks the Corporation made application for them to the Department, but were refused. Afterwards, when they were vacated by the Irregulars, they were burned. ...morebtn.gif


    http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1927/08/04/member547.asp

    The Irish Party was focused on local issues .

    http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-927357-X.pdf

    So did he have an influence on Sligo locally.


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    #65
    CDfm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,649 ✭✭✭✭CDfm


    One claim to fame is that 1927 was the closest Labour ever came to having a Taoiseach and Labour would have had a minority government 'cept that that Alderman Jinks voted as he did.
    • Eamon Gilmore seemed like a viable possibility for Taoiseach, earlier in this two-year election campaign.
      He may have brought Labour to record poll numbers, but he's not the closest a Labour leader has ever got to leading the government.
      That honour belongs to Thomas Johnson (pictured), leader of the Labour party in the 1920s, who came within one vote of being President of the Executive Council in August 1927 – and that vote was the casting vote of the Ceann Comhairle.
      And had an opposition deputy named John Jinks not gone AWOL for the vote, the casting vote would not have been needed, and Labour would have won it.
      The June 1927 election saw WT Cosgrave's Cumann na nGaedheal win 46 seats and Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil, then still an abstentionist party, win 44 seats. Johnson's Labour won 22. The new National League Party, a coalition of unionists, Anglophiles and anti-Cumann na nGaedheal-ers, won eight seats.
      That August, Fianna Fáil decided to enter the Dáil, and promptly supported a vote of no confidence. De Valera agreed to back Thomas Johnson for Taoiseach, promising his support for a minority Labour-National League coalition. On paper, they had the numbers, just about.
      The no confidence debate was scheduled for the afternoon of Friday, August 19. William Redmond's National League met at 2pm, and unanimously decided to back the motion, seemingly putting it beyond doubt. (Just in case, Desmond FitzGerald, father of Garret, had risen from his sick bed to attend the vote.)
      With the result assumed to be a foregone conclusion, the debate was desultory. "Worse speeches have rarely been heard in Leinster House", reported the Irish Times.
      Thomas Johnson's opening statement was "halting and indecisive". There was "no enthusiasm, no applause, hardly any interest; for one felt that everything was cut and dried."
      The debate dragged to a close, the motion was put to the house, and a division was called.
      "Then comes the astonishing whisper: 'Where is Alderman Jinks?'," recorded the Times.
      "Eager eyes scanned the benches for the burly National Leaguer from Sligo. A short time previously he had been in his place...but now he was nowhere to be seen."
      "With a sensational turn of the tables, the whole position had been reversed."
      With Jinks absent, both sides were level at 71 votes, and the Ceann Comhairle duly voted in favour of the government.

    http://www.politico.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7337:the-man-who-would-have-been-taoiseach&catid=40:politics&Itemid=877


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