 Thereafter he retained this seat unopposed through five successive general elections, joining the Irish Parliamentary Party when the two factions reunited in 1900.At the 1918 general election he was defeated by Countess Markievicz of Sinn Féin by more than two to one.He presented himself as a labour representative, though he denounced socialism; he attended early Irish trade union congresses as representative of the "Knights of the Plough" a farm laborers' body founded by Benjamin Pelin at Narraghmore, County Kildare in June 1892.