Abstainer

Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in the election itself. Abstentionism has been used by Irish republican political movements in the United Kingdom and Ireland since the early 19th century. It was also used by Hungarian and Czech nationalists in the Austrian Imperial Council in the 1860s.

In Hungary

When suppressing the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the Austrian Empire abolished the Diet of Hungary. Austria's 1861 February Patent reserved places for Hungary in the indirectly-elected Imperial Council, but the Hungarians did not send representatives, arguing the council was usurping authority properly belonging to the Diet. Emulating the Hungarians, the Czech delegates for Bohemia withdrew in 1863, and those from Moravia in 1864. Hungarian demands were met by the Compromise of 1867, with the empire becoming the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary in which the Hungarian half was ruled by a revived Diet. In 1904, Arthur Griffith published '' The Resurrection of Hungary'' arguing for a British–Irish dual monarchy similar to the 1867 compromise. Griffith's subsequent "''Sinn Féin'' policy" developed this model. Tom Kettle of the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) countered that Bohemia had remained in the Austrian half of the post-1867 empire, and its delegates abandoned abstentionism in 1879.

In Ireland

Before partition

After the Act of Union 1800, Ireland was represented in the British Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Repeal of the Act of Union was a goal of many Irish nationalists.

In 1845, a motion was carried at the Repeal Association's committee for all Irish members of parliament (MPs) to withdraw from Westminster. It was proposed by Thomas Osborne Davis of the Young Ireland movement. However, the committee felt that MPs already sitting could not withdraw without breaking the oath of office they had taken upon election. The Irish Confederation, which withdrew from the Repeal Association in 1847, resolved in favour of immediate abstention; however, its founder William Smith O'Brien continued to speak at Westminster. In 1848, Charles Gavan Duffy proposed that Irish MPs expelled from Westminster should sit in a separate Irish parliament.

Other early abstentionist advocates included George Sigerson in 1862, and John Dillon in 1878, who envisaged abstentionist Irish MPs meeting in a separate Irish parliament.Lydon 1998, p. 325

From the 1860s, Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) leaders Charles Kickham and John O'Leary favoured abstentionism. In 1869, G. H. Moore suggested nominating imprisoned republicans for election, knowing they were precluded as convicted felons from taking seats. On this basis, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa (in 1870) and John Mitchel (twice in 1875) were returned at by-elections in Tipperary; O'Donovan Rossa was in prison at his election, while Mitchel was in exile.

Kickham envisaged a "great national conference" calling on Irish MPs to withdraw from Westminster. A motion to that effect was proposed by Charles Guilfoyle Doran and passed at the convention of the Home Rule League (HRL). "Honest" John Martin, "independent nationalist" MP for Meath from 1871 to 1875, spoke in Westminster only to raise nationalist protests, and refused to vote. In the 1874 election, 59 HRL MPs were returned, including John O'Connor Power