Parliament of the United Kingdom
MacManaway then set his sights on Westminster, although, as a man of the cloth, there was some doubt as to his eligibility, owing to various historical statutes debarring clergymen of both the Established Church (i.e. Church of England) and the Roman Catholic Church from sitting as MPs in the British House of Commons. He sought legal advice from the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, Edmund Warnock. Warnock advised him that since the Church of Ireland had been disestablished in 1869, the statutory bars would not apply to MacManaway.
MacManaway was selected by the Unionist party to contest Belfast West in the 1950 General Election. As a precaution, he resigned from his offices in the Church of Ireland. He won the election, defeating the sitting Irish Labour Party MP Jack Beattie by 3,378 votes. Among the activists working on this campaign was a young Ian Paisley.
As the first priest to take his seat in the House of Commons for 150 years, MacManaway was put under scrutiny by a select committee of the House. They were unable to come to firm conclusions and, with some disquiet, recommended urgent legislation to clarify the law. The Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, instead referred the matter to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
Their judgement, in essence, identified a lacuna in the existing legislation, which would disqualify MacManaway. While the Irish Church Act 1869 did disestablish the Church of Ireland, since there was no express provision in that act permitting its clergy to sit as MPs, MacManaway was still subject to the strictures of the House of Commons (Clergy Disqualification) Act 1801, which debarred any person "ordained to the office of priest or deacon" from sitting or voting in the House of Commons.
Modern scholars have questioned the rationale of this decision but, nonetheless, the House of Commons resolved on 19 October 1950 that MacManaway was disqualified from sitting. The House did, however, indemnify him, by the Reverend J. G. MacManaway's Indemnity Act 1951 (14 & 15 Geo. 6. c. 29), from the £500-a-time fines that he had incurred for voting in parliamentary divisions while ineligible. MacManaway had voted on five occasions.
MacManaway bitterly protested at what he perceived as an unjust anachronism bringing his career to an abrupt end, but did not contest the ensuing by-election, which was held for the Unionists by Thomas Teevan. His House of Commons career had lasted all of 238 days.
