 He returned to Ireland in the late 1920s, and stood unsuccessfully as an Independent Republican candidate for Belfast West at the 1929 United Kingdom general election.An anglophile he was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1932 Irish general election as an independent Teachta Dála (TD) for Roscommon.He founded the National Centre Party that year with James Dillon, and became the party's leader.