Timothy Quill

Timothy Quill (9 May 1901 – 10 June 1960) was an Irish Labour Party politician, farmer and a figure in the history of the cooperative movement in Ireland.

He was a founder of the City of Cork Co-operative Society (also serving as the society's secretary), and was the editor of The Cork Co-Operator publication.

He was also manager and secretary of the Cork Co-operative Bakery Society.

He was an organiser for the Labour Party in Cork, a regional trade union secretary and one of a number of early Labour Dáil members to promote Christian socialism.

Timothy Quill was born to Daniel and Mary Quill in Clondrohid, Macroom, County Cork, on 9 May 1901.

He had five siblings in total, all brothers.

Quill, along with TJ Murphy and Paddy Crowley MCC, have been credited with establishing "labourers' clubs" in County Cork during the 1920s and 1930s.

The clubs would meet after Mass and some were supported by parish priests.

Quill also served as a local councillor initially with Cork County Council from 1925 but served on both the County Council and Cork Corporation during the 1930s and 1940s.

Quill was a councillor on Cork County Council at the time, having been elected in 1925.

It has been said that he was recruited into the party by Labour politician and fellow Clondrohid native T. J. Murphy.

As a Transport member, he was nominated and won a seat in 1925, retaining his seat in 1928 and lost the seat in 1934, before winning a seat again in 1942 and serving until 1945.

He was elected to both the Cork County Council and the Cork Corporation that year.

Quill was at one time Chair of the South Cork Board of Public Assistance.

Quill was 26 years old at the time of the general election on 9 June 1927 and was one of 44 Labour candidates in total.

While campaigning, Quill described himself as a "temperate man".

In June 1927, at a meeting in North Cork, Quill outlined what he believed the Labour Party stood for.

Referring to the level of unemployment, he spoke about the "right to work" and the government's perceived failing of "humbler people" over the "well-to-do class".

Quill was elected as a Labour Party TD for the Cork North constituency at the June 1927 general election, receiving 18% of first preference votes.

Slogans, such as 'Be Labour This Time' and 'Away With Slums & Mud Cabins' were featured on his election posters.

He was the youngest member of the 5th Dail.

He spoke against the Public Safety Bill 1927 in August 1927.

During a finance committee debate on old age pensions in July 1927, he decried what he described as the "strict and harsh manner" of some pensions officers.

Quill lost his seat at the September 1927 general election, serving only three months as a TD. He received 4,123 first preference votes.

T. D. Keating of the ITGWU said that it was regrettable that Quill was not re-elected.

The number of Labour candidates almost halved (from 44 to 28).

Speaking on the heavy defeat for Labour in the September 1927 election, T. J. Murphy regretted that the party had lost candidates, like Quill, who he described as "young men of the ability and honesty of Mr. Quill, who had been defeated in North Cork by a mere handful of votes, after making a marvellous fight against a combination of influences".

Quill did not contest the 1932 general election, declining to stand at a convention in Millstreet, Cork.

According to The Southern Star, it was thought Quill would be the chosen candidate, but, according to the newspaper's columnist, had "to a certain extent, lost touch with the electors of this division and he declined to accept the honour".

According to the Cork Examiner, having been proposed and seconded, Quill declined the nomination and asked "that some other candidate […] be proposed".

In a letter published in The Southern Star in June 1933, Quill labelled criticisms leveled against him and the Labour movement as 'ignorant'.

Initially living in Macroom, he moved to Cork City with his wife and young family, and in 1936 was living near Victoria Cross.

Before his time in the co-operative movement, he was involved in the insurance business.

Quill was a regional trade union secretary for North-West Cork.

As of 1936, he was Chairman of the Cork County Executive of the Labour Party.

Quill contested the 1937 general election as a sitting city councillor on the Cork Corporation, as one of 23 Labour candidates, receiving 14.9% of first preference votes, but was not elected.

He ran again in the 1938 general election, this time as one of 30 Labour candidates, receiving 4,950 first preference votes (12.6%), but was once again not elected.

This was to be his last general election campaign, however he would remain as an elected city councillor on Cork Corporation.

According to A Biographical Dictionary of Cork, by Tim Cadogan and Jeremiah Falvey, Quill served as a councillor on Cork County Council for two periods.

The clubs began to go into decline in the 1940s as farm machinery became more commonplace.