British army officer to republican activist - Robert Barton's road to the Dáil
Thirty-eight-year-old Minister for Agriculture Robert Barton was a Wicklow landlord and a progressive agriculturist, introducing modern farming techniques at his Annamoe estate. According to childhood friend, Erskine Childers, it was while he and Barton were on a tour of co-operatives in the west of Ireland in 1908 that they were converted to home-rule nationalism.
Barton lost two brothers on the battlefields of World War One and his time as a British army officer in Richmond Barracks in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising influenced his decision to resign his commission and join the republican movement. I
n the December 1918 general election Barton, now a Volunteer commandant, was elected Sinn Féin MP for Wicklow West. In the same month, he was a member of the delegation sent to London to make representations to see President Woodrow Wilson. Barton read the 'Message to the free nations of the world' in English at the first meeting of the Dáil.
