Bryan Cooper ( politician ) Bryan Ricco Cooper ( 17 June 1884 – 5 July 1930 ) was an Irish politician , writer and landowner from Markree Castle , County Sligo . He was prominent in Dáil Éireann in the early years of the Irish Free State , having previously served as MP to Westminster for South Dublin County ( 1910 ) , a seat he subsequently represented in the Dáil from 1923 to 1930 . Life . The Cooper family , Protestant landlords , had been involved in politics in Sligo since long before the 1800 Act of Union ( which Joshua Cooper , a Privy Councillor at the time , strongly opposed ) . Bryan Cooper ' s father , Francis , was a major in the British Army stationed at Simla , India , where Bryan was born . His mother was the daughter of another Irishman serving in India , Major - General Maunsel Prendergast , who had married a Swiss woman there . The family returned to Ireland before Bryan was a year old , and then spent several years in postings around Britain , until his father was sent to South Africa at the start of the Anglo - Boer War . Bryan was educated ( but not particularly happy ) at Eton College . His father died during the war of Typhoid fever and Bryan came into his inheritance in Sligo . Cooper joined the British Army and , following his father ' s advice , trained as a gunner at Woolwich ( 1902 – 03 ) . A fellow - cadet ( " R . T . H . " ) described him as " cheerful , well - mannered and pleasant " , but more interested in books than in military matters . He resigned his commission a few years later and returned to Ireland , intending to enter politics – he once said that he entered politics to cure him of his shyness . In his spare time he wrote poetry strongly influenced by Celtic imagery and W . B . Yeats ( whom he was later to befriend ) , and started work on a novel . In 1908 he was appointed High Sheriff of Sligo . In January 1910 he was elected Unionist MP for South Dublin , defeating his nearest opponent by only sixty - six votes . During his election campaign he got to know a young lady of Irish ancestry from Fulmer , Buckinghamshire , a Miss Handcock , whom he married shortly afterwards . They were to have a daughter and three sons . He lost his seat at the December election later that year . Aged only 26 , he was one of the youngest ever MPs to leave the House of Commons . He resigned his commission as a captain in the Reserves in May 1914 , stating publicly that he had done so in sympathy with the officers in the Curragh , but he wrote in his private diary ( " Uncensored Memoirs " ) that he had for years been fed up of the regime in the Reserves , and had been intending to quit . After the start of World War I he joined the Fifth ( Service ) Battalion of the Connaught Rangers . He saw action in Gallipoli , Thessalonika and Stavros . After the war he became Press Censor in Ireland and wrote " Ireland Under Sinn Féin " . He got to know many writers and intellectuals active in Dublin at the time . Major Cooper was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1923 general election as an independent Teachta Dála ( TD ) for the Dublin County constituency . W . B . Yeats was one of his chief supporters ( of whom Cooper wrote : " since I was a boy his writings have been one of the strongest influences on me , and helped to make me the good Irishman I hope I am . " ) . He was re - elected at the June 1927 general election . He joined the Cumann na nGaedheal party . Other former independents who joined " Mr Cosgrave ' s ranks " included Labour independent John Daly and Vincent Rice , formerly National League . He was elected as a Cumann na nGaedheal TD at the September 1927 general election . He died in July 1930 and the subsequent by - election on 9 December 1930 was won by Thomas Finlay of Cumann na nGaedheal . He was one of the few people who served in the House of Commons and in the Oireachtas . In 1931 , his widow presented a half size reproduction of the ancient Lough Lene bell to Dáil Éireann and it has since been the bell of the Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann .