Trade unionist Quill was a regional trade union secretary for North-West Cork. 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. The clubs began to go into decline in the 1940s as farm machinery became more commonplace.
June 1927 general election 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. 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.
September 1927 general election 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.
1930s general elections 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'. 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.
County councillor 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. 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. The City Councillor's 1920–1945 roll book seems to record that T Quill was elected in 1936. In 1939, he is listed as a member of the Labour Party's Cork Centre Branch. There was a local election in the city almost every year from 1929 to 1936 to elect portions of the city council and others in 1942 and 1945. He is still listed as a councillor in this book in 1944–1945.
Outlooks and accusations of anti-Semitism In 1936, Quill said that "the Irish Labour Movement has its own road to travel and had no place for the cries of Fascism or Communism that plagued the world today." During the 1940s, Quill became chair of the Liam Mellows Branch of the Labour Party. In this capacity he proved to be an enemy of
Michael O'Riordan. The branch had been established by former members of the Curragh Camp's Communist Group. O'Riordan had retrospectively asserted that Quill was imposed as chair to ensure that Labour in Cork City could control the new branch. O'Riordan also stated that Quill had made an attack on what Quill "called 'the Jew boys' of Cork". It was during this time that the ITGWU had disaffiliated from the Labour Party and the
National Labour Party was established on the basis that communists were infiltrating the party. A report in the
Irish Press suggests that the Administrative Council "had become aware that certain persons in Cork were engaging in activities which appear to be inconsistent with their membership of the Labour Party and accordingly they appointed a subcommittee to investigate the membership and administration of the Liam Mellows Branch". O'Riordan's son, Manus, would later refer to Quill as an "anti-Semitic red-baiting villain" who was responsible for O'Riordan's expulsion. He was also a member of the Cork Co-operators' Guild. He was also the editor of
The Cork Co-Operator, a monthly publication of the
co-operative movement in Cork. In a letter to the editor, published on the cover of the June 1939 issue, Steve Denny (director of the
London Co-operative Society) described
The Cork Co-Operator as a "bright little paper". Quill frequently attended the
Co-operative Congress in the UK throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Inspired by
Robert Owen, he built cottages for the workers on his land. Quill regarded himself as a Christian Socialist. He resigned his position in the co-operative movement in 1954. These societies were defunct by the time of his death in 1960. In 2021, an article in
The Southern Star described Quill as "an icon in the Irish co-operative movement". == Later life ==