Thomas Pringle, an Irish independent politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Donegal constituency since the 2016 Irish general election, is born into an Irish Republican family in Dublin on August 30, 1967. From 2011 to 2016 he is the TD for the Donegal South-West constituency.

Pringle’s father, Peter, is a supporter of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and is convicted of the killing of two members of the Gardaí in 1980, a conviction that is subsequently declared as unsafe, although it has not been certified as a miscarriage of justice. Pringle is a patron of the People’s Movement, which campaigns against the Treaty of Lisbon. He is previously a member of Donegal County Council, where he manages a water treatment plant and is a shop steward, having been elected as an independent member in the 1999 Irish local elections, and then as a Sinn Féin candidate in the 2004 Irish local elections. He leaves Sinn Féin in 2007 and retains his seat as an independent in the 2009 Irish local elections.

Pringle is elected as a TD for the Donegal South-West constituency at the 2011 Irish general election, unseating the incumbent Tánaiste Mary Coughlan. He quickly becomes an ally of Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, elected as an independent TD at the same time as Pringle, but for the Roscommon–South Leitrim constituency. Flanagan and Pringle go on to support each other on many issues, including reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and opposition to the Mercosur deal. Even when Flanagan is elected as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Midlands–North-West constituency after spending three years in the Dáil, he and Pringle continue to work together, and Flanagan visits Donegal to canvass for Pringle ahead of the 2020 Irish general election.

On December 5, 2011, Pringle delivers a televised address to the nation, representing the technical group of TDs in Dáil Éireann. He does so in response to Taoiseach Enda Kenny‘s address to the nation of the previous evening. Later that month, he calls on people for support in a campaign not to pay a new household charge brought in as part of the latest austerity budget and announces that he will not register for the tax or pay it.

In February 2012, Pringle publishes his expenses online. He is elected leader of the technical group in Dáil Éireann in March 2012.

In May 2012, Pringle brings an unsuccessful High Court challenge over the 2012 European Fiscal Compact referendum and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Treaty which is appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2012. In July 2012, the Irish Supreme Court decides to refer three questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) arising out of his challenge of the European Stability Mechanism Treaty and doubts about the ESM’s legality under the Treaties of the European Union. The CJEU holds an oral hearing on the referral on October 23, 2012. It is the first time that the full court sits to hear a reference from a member state of the Union. The 27 judges hear oral arguments from the counsel for Pringle, Ireland, nine other member states, the Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament. On November 27, 2012, the EU Court of Justice dismisses Pringle’s arguments and rules that the ESM is in accordance with the Treaties.

In the 2016 Irish general election, after a re-drawing of constituency boundaries, Pringle campaigns in the new five-seater Donegal constituency. He is re-elected to the final seat by a margin of just 184 votes over Sinn Féin’s Pádraig Mac Lochlainn. During negotiations to form a government, Pringle says he is glad not to have signed up to the Independent Alliance, after that group enters talks with Taoiseach Enda Kenny. He says that unless Kenny or Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin sign up to Right2Change, he will not support either as Taoiseach.

As of April 2016, Pringle had become a member of the Independents 4 Change technical group in the Dáil.

In May 2016, Pringle introduces legislation designed to retain water in public ownership and avoid further privatisation.

Pringle puts forward a bill calling on the government to end public spending from fossil fuels, which passes, making Ireland the first country to fully divest public money from fossil fuels. In June 2022, he puts forward a bill proposing a referendum on lowering the voting age to sixteen.

Pringle is married and has three children.