The December 1918 general election is a landmark event in Irish political history. Irish nationalism was transformed as, casting aside Home Rule devolution, a greatly enlarged electorate of men and women opted for republican independence. But a taint of corrupt practice has long attached itself to the decisive victory Sinn Fein won at this election. Scholars who have referenced this taint include Brian Farrell, Robert Kee, Tom Garvin, Patrick Maume, Dermot Meleady, Charles Townshend and Elaine Callinan.1 Writing in the Irish Times on the election’s fortieth anniversary in 1958, Proinsias MacAonghusa gets to the nub of the matter: The true story of the 1918 election has never been completely told, and it is by no means certain that the full facts will ever be revealed. Many tales are heard of large scale personation on the part of Sinn Fein, but it is almost impossible now to check these allegations. Numerous old Republicans are willing to tell of intimidation, of vote stealing and of “graveyard voting” but, on the other hand, other former Sinn Feiners declare that no such thing happened and that Sinn Fein won on its merit.2 The many old Republicans and former Sinn Feiners that survived then are now dead. But the Witness Statements many of them made to the Bureau of Military History (BMH) in the late 1940s and early 1950s are available online and form a database that can be searched using keywords. As Eve Morrison3 and other historians have discussed, these retrospective statements combine significant limitations with notable strengths. While a military rather than a political focus framed the collection of the witness statements, those making them were permitted wide freedom as to what they chose to include.