The Sligo election was held under the Sligo Corporation Act of 1918, a private act passed in the UK Parliament under the sponsorship of the Sligo Ratepayers Association (SRA), an alliance of Protestants and businessmen which opposed the actions of the outgoing corporation.[3][4] The election under the 1918 act was exempt from the general postponement.[5]
In the 1919 election, the SRA ran a slate of 18 candidates (11 Protestant and 7 Catholic) and won 8 seats; Sinn Féin, Labour, and an Independent Nationalist had a majority of 13 seats between them.[6] It was the second STV election ever in Ireland; the first was in the University of Dublin in the November 1918 Westminster election. The outcome was seen as a vindication of STV, which was adopted for all Irish local authorities by the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919, in time for the 1920 local elections.[3] The 1918 act envisaged triennial elections in Sligo,[7] as the 1919 act did throughout Ireland. In the event, the Irish War of Independence, Irish Civil War, and aftermath meant the next local elections were postponed until 1925.[8]
"8 & 9 Geo.V c.xxiii(P) Sligo Corporation Act, 1918"(PDF). The local and private acts passed in the eighth and ninth years of the reign of His Majesty King George the fifth : being the eighth session of the thirtieth parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland : with an index. Eyre & Spottiswoode for William Richard Codling. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
^ abcd"Old Local Election Results". Irish Election Literature. 28 October 2011. p. Sligo Corporation Local Election Results 1919 to 2009. Retrieved 18 March 2015.