seamus dubhghaill

Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: 2020 Irish General Election


by Leave a comment

Birth of Dessie Ellis, Sinn Féin Politician

Desmond Ellis, Sinn Féin politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency since the 2011 Irish general election, is born in Finglas, Dublin, on September 23, 1953.

Ellis is from an Irish republican family, and both of his grandfathers fought in the Easter Rising in 1916. He later owns a television repair business.

Ellis is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoner. He is arrested in 1981, when explosives and bomb making equipment are found under his bed. He is charged with possession of explosives. He jumps bail, but is arrested in Buffalo, New York in February 1982 and extradited to the Republic of Ireland, where in April 1983, he is sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment in Portlaoise Prison. He is convicted of possessing multiple power-timer units for IRA bombs, including those suspected of being used in the Hyde Park and Regent’s Park bombings. In 1983, his fingerprints are found on a huge cache of IRA explosives found in a forest outside the Berkshire town of Pangbourne. The cache is linked to the Harrods and Hyde Park bombings. On November 14, 1990, after thirty-five days on hunger strike, he becomes the first person extradited from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom under the 1987 Extradition Act. He goes on hunger strike to protest efforts to send him to Britain, but is extradited in the sixth week of his fast. His hunger strike draws considerable domestic and international attention, and at one point Taoiseach Charles Haughey intervenes, asking Ellis’ parents to ask him to give it up, but they refuse. He is acquitted at his trial in London in October 1991.

Ellis is first elected to Dublin City Council in 1999, for the Finglas local electoral area. He unsuccessfully contests the 2002 Irish general election in the Dublin North-West constituency, and receives 4,781 first-preference votes (18.3%). He is again unsuccessful at the 2007 Irish general election in the same constituency, receiving 4,873 votes (15.7%). At the 2011 Irish general election, he is elected to the 31st Dáil with 7,115 (21.7%) of the first-preference votes.

In October 2014, following claims made by Máiría Cahill that she had been raped as a 17-year-old by a member of the Provisional IRA, Ellis states that “If an allegation was made against a volunteer it would have to be investigated [internally]…To be honest they were not qualified to deal with something like sexual abuse”. Based on this, Philip Ryan of the Irish Independent accuses Ellis of admitting that the IRA ran “kangaroo courts.”

In 2015, Ellis refuses to comment on if Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams should distance himself from Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy, an Irish republican found guilty of tax fraud and an allegedly a former IRA Chief of Staff.

At the 2016 Irish general election Ellis is again elected with 7,571 (20.5%) of the first-preference votes.

In September 2016, a bill is put forward, which if passed would criminalise hare coursing. Sinn Féin supports the legalisation of hare coursing and decides to apply the party whip. As Ellis opposes it he declines to vote. He defies party instructions by not informing party whip Aengus Ó Snodaigh that he will not be taking part in the vote so he could be excused. He is subsequently given a written warning.

In December 2016, during a session of the Dáil, Ellis and his fellow Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris are accused by Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell of having information in relation to the shooting of Brian Stack, the chief prison officer at Portlaoise Prison, in 1983. Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams had just delivered an address to the Dáil in relation to Stack when Farrell rises and uses Dáil privilege to state Gerry Adams had listed Ellis and Ferris as amongst people who may have information about the Stack death in an e-mail to the Garda Commission in February 2014, and ask that the two should also address the Dáil on the matter. Ellis immediately responds by stating, “I refute [sic] any allegations. For the information, the man in question claims to be a solicitor, I was actually in jail for the period. In Portlaoise, and before that in America, so you should check your facts. You’re a disgrace.” Ferris follows Ellis, and states, “On the record of this house; In 2013, I met with gardaí at their request regarding the death of Brian Stack, I co-operated fully with them and I have nothing to answer for, and it’s a disgrace what you have come in here naming. You should be ashamed of yourself.” In December 2016, Ellis states he had received death threats following the exchange in the Dáil.

In February 2018, Ellis is censured by Sinn Féin after he states publicly that fellow party member and councillor for Ballymun Noeleen Reilly is “not fit to represent Sinn Féin” and that she had waged a social media campaign against him. For her part, Reilly is suspended by the party for six months.

At the 2020 Irish general election Ellis is again elected with 14,375 first-preference votes (44.4%). He is a poll topper in the 2020 general election along with many Sinn Féin TDs in the 2020 election. He is criticised for joining his supporters singing “Come Out, Ye Black and Tans” at the count, but he dismisses the suggestion it is inappropriate.

At the 2024 Irish general election, Ellis is re-elected to the Dáil.

Ellis is in favour of the abolition of the local property tax. He supports the repealing of the Eighth Amendment, which forbids abortion in the Republic of Ireland. He believes refugees should have the right to work in Ireland and believes the system of direct provision should come to an end.

In 2012, the Irish Independent, citing released internal documents held by the British government that were previously sealed for 30 years, alleges that by 1982 British authorities believe Ellis to be linked to “50 murders” as part of his time in the Provisional IRA. The allegation specifically cites a telegraph from the British embassy in Washington, D.C., to American counterparts in which they claim that Ellis is linked by “forensic evidence to some 50 murders” across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Independent claims another document states that Ellis is a “leading member” of the Provisional IRA.

Sinn Féin denounces the allegations as an “Indo Smear” and releases a statement declaring, “This is not the first time such unsubstantiated allegations have been made and Dessie Ellis rejects them as he has repeatedly done. Following a prolonged hunger strike in the 1990s to protest his extradition to Britain, Dessie successfully beat these trumped-up charges in court. Dessie Ellis has made no secret of his involvement in the republican struggle over many decades, including within the ranks of the IRA. Dessie has also been an important persuader for the Peace Process for many years.” Ellis does not make any personal statement on the allegations and refers journalists to Sinn Féin’s official statement.

Ellis is proficient in karate, holding a black belt, and teaches martial arts to young people. He is married to Anne Ellis (née Dunne) with grown up children.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Josepha Madigan, Fine Gael Politician

Josepha Madigan, former Fine Gael politician, is born in Dublin on May 21, 1970. She serves as Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight from July 2016 to November 2017, Minister for Culture, Heritage, and the Gaeltacht from November 2017 to June 2020, and as Minister of State at the Department of Education from July 2020 to March 2024. She serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Rathdown constituency from 2016 to 2024.

Madigan attends Mount Anville Secondary School and Trinity College Dublin (TCD). She is married to Finbarr Hayes, and they have two children. Her father, Patrick Madigan, was a Fianna Fáil County Councillor in Dublin, and her mother, Patricia Madigan, was a barrister who had a background in Fine Gael. She and her family live in Mount Merrion, Dublin. She is a survivor of sexual assault.

Madigan is a qualified solicitor, who practises in family law for twenty years, prior to her election to Dáil Éireann. She is also certified as a mediator by the Mediators’ Institute of Ireland (MII) and is a previous Council member of the MII. She is a former Specialist Liaison Officer for Family Mediation in the MII.

Madigan is the author of the first book in Ireland on mediation: Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Ireland, a handbook for family lawyers and their clients (Jordan Publishing, 2012). She has also self-published a novel called Negligent Behaviour.

Madigan serves as a councillor for the local electoral area of Stillorgan on Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council, from May 2014 until her election as a TD in 2016.

Madigan issues a leaflet in 2014 claiming that providing accommodation for Travellers in her constituency would be “a waste of valuable resources.” When asked about this later, she claims, “Some people won’t want to live beside people in halting sites […] there might be more crime, that there might be anti-social behaviour.”

Madigan is elected to the 32nd Dáil at the 2016 Irish general election as a Fine Gael TD for the Dublin Rathdown constituency, defeating sitting Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter by nearly 1,000 votes. She is appointed Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight in July 2017. She is a member of the Public Accounts Committee. She introduces a private member’s bill to reduce the waiting time for divorce in Ireland from four years to two, which is passed by the Dáil.

On November 30, 2017, Madigan is appointed to the cabinet as Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, in a reshuffle following the resignation of the Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald.

On March 29, 2018, Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar appoints Madigan as the coordinator for the party’s Yes campaign in the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

In 2019, Madigan receives widespread coverage for her role in the personal injury legal claim of Fine Gael politician, Maria Bailey. It is alleged that her law practice, Madigan Solicitors, advised Bailey on her claim, however, Madigan refuses to make any comments on this citing client-solicitor confidentiality. In July 2019, an internal unpublished Fine Gael probe into the affair clears Madigan of any wrongdoing in regard to the claim. In late July 2019, the Irish Independent reports that “it is now known that she advised Ms. Bailey in the early stages of the claim.” It is also reported that her firm would earn €11,500 in fees if the Maria Bailey case were successful.

Madigan is re-elected at the 2020 Irish general election, taking the third seat behind Green Party Deputy Leader Catherine Martin and party colleague Neale Richmond. On July 1, 2020, she is appointed by the new government as Minister of State at the Department of Education with special responsibility for special education and inclusion. On January 14, 2021, she comes under fire for describing children without additional needs as “normal” while speaking in the Dáil. “We all know that even for normal children remote teaching is difficult but for children who have additional needs it is particularly difficult,” she says. Later that day on Twitter, she says she “sincerely apologises for the language she used. It is absolutely not what I meant to say.”

On January 20, 2021, speaking on RTÉ‘s Today with Claire Byrne, Madigan compares children with additional needs not attending school to the mother and baby homes. “We’ve spent the last week talking about mother and baby homes, where our most vulnerable were left to their own devices in less than satisfactory conditions and we’re now allowing further anxiety and upset to be placed on the shoulders of parents whose children desperately need to go back to school.” The Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Related Matters is published the week prior to her comments. She later apologises in a statement: “I am, as are all involved in supporting these children [children with additional needs], passionate about vindicating their rights and in reaching for an analogy I chose poorly. I apologise fully.”

Shortly after the first report of the Creeslough explosion on October 7, 2022, Madigan tweets that she hopes “they find the culprits” and, after being criticised as irresponsible and insensitive, she quickly deletes the tweet.

On March 22, 2024, Madigan announces that she will resign as Minister of State and will not contest the next general election.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Mannix Flynn, Politician, Author & Playwright

Gerard Mannix Flynn, an Irish Independent politician, author and playwright, is born in Dublin on May 4, 1957. He is serving as a Dublin City Councillor since May 2009. In addition to his work on Dublin City Council, he has also written the novel Nothing To Say in 1983 and the play James X in 2002.

At the age of eleven, Flynn is sent to St. Joseph’s Industrial School in Letterfrack, County Galway, for eighteen months. He is subjected to sexual and physical abuse there. He also spends time in Marlborough House Detention Centre, Daingean, County Offaly, St. Patrick’s Institution, Dublin, and is given five years at the age of fifteen and sent to Mountjoy Prison.

Flynn publishes the novel Nothing To Say in 1983. It is subsequently translated into German, Italian, and Polish. He founds his arts company, Farcry Productions, in 2004, which produces visual art, performance and installation work around taboo issues such as child sexual abuse, violence, and addiction.

In 2004, James X performed by Flynn wins The Irish Times Irish Theatre Award. An earlier version of this play entitled Talking to the Wall previously wins the Edinburgh Fringe award.

Flynn appears in the films Cal, When the Sky Falls and Excalibur and works as an actor in Scotland, London, Austria, and Dublin for twenty years.

Flynn is first elected to Dublin City Council in the 2009 Irish local elections as an independent candidate representing the South-East Inner City electoral area. He is re-elected to the revised Pembroke-South Dock electoral area in the 2014 Irish local elections.

Flynn tables a motion to move the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, a State company set up in 1991 as a regeneration agency for Temple Bar, under the direct control of Dublin City Council. The trust is subsequently found to be in breach of corporate governance and accountability in a number of public reports. He also expresses critical views of the way public money is spent as part of a Grafton Street regeneration project in Dublin.

Flynn supports tougher regulation around the amplification of busking on public streets, which leads to his office being vandalised in February 2015. He is involved in a number of challenges to cycle lane provision, with a High Court challenge against the Strand Road cycle lane COVID-19 mobility trial and is a spokesperson for a group opposed to this cycle lane trial. Critics accuse him of consistently voting against policies that would provide more active travel infrastructure and in favour of policies which negatively impact pedestrians and cyclists. His legal challenges to cycling provision have the potential to revert a number of cycle lanes which have been created back to servicing predominantly cars.

In 2015, Flynn resigns from the Dublin City Council Arts SPC over what he perceives as a lack of cohesive overall policy, strategy, and vision.

In 2016, Flynn protests against the Artane Band, due to its association with the Artane Industrial School. The band responds saying it has had no association with the former industrial school. His peaceful protest, which includes him protesting on a window sill in his Dublin City Council office, is criticised by some as “attention seeking” and a “publicity stunt full stop.”

In 2019, Flynn is involved in a protest march against plans to open the state’s largest homeless shelter in his ward. Protesters march northbound on Aungier Street blocking traffic and shouting slogans against the Peter McVerry trust for providing the services in conjunction with Dublin City Council. In 2020, he takes further legal action against the council, who are working in conjunction with the Peter McVerry Trust, so that he can ensure the homeless facilities will not be built in the area.

Flynn contests the 2011, 2016 and 2020 Irish general elections to Dáil Éireann unsuccessfully. He stands unsuccessfully as an independent candidate at the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election, getting 879 first-preference votes (3.3%).

A 2019 documentary by Flynn, Land Without God, about the effects of clerical abuse on Flynn and his family, receives special mention for the Dublin Human Rights Film Award at the Dublin International Film Festival.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Malcolm Byrne, Fianna Fáil Politician

Malcolm Byrne, an Irish Fianna Fáil politician, is born in Gorey, County Wexford, on April 25, 1974. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Wicklow–Wexford constituency since the 2024 Irish general election. He previously serves as a Senator for the Cultural and Educational Panel from 2020 to 2024. He represents the Wexford constituency from 2019 to 2020.

Byrne is the eldest child from a family of five. He attends St. Joseph’s CBS secondary school in Gorey, later studying law at University College Dublin (UCD). He is secretary of the Kevin Barry Cumann while at UCD. He Is involved in student politics, serving as education officer for both UCD Students’ Union and the Union of Students in Ireland, and as an executive member of the European Students’ Union.

Byrne describes the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre and the fall of the Berlin Wall as influencing his decision to enter politics.

Byrne is Head of Communications with the Higher Education Authority (HEA) until 2019, and has been Vice-President of the National Youth Council of Ireland. In 2014, he is named as one of the European 40 Under 40, in the European Young Leaders Programme.

When first elected to Gorey Town Council on the first count in the 1999 Irish local elections, he is its youngest member at the age of 25. He tops the poll again at the 2004 Irish local elections. He is first elected to Wexford County Council in the 2009 Irish local elections for the Gorey local electoral area, and elected Chairman following his 2014 re-election.

In January 2006, The Sun includes Byrne’s picture on the cover of its Irish edition beneath the headline “Bertie‘s FF Man in Gay Web Shame,” revealing that Byrne has a profile on the dating website Gaydar. He responds at the time, “I have not, nor have I ever, done anything illegal and I am not a hypocrite in any way. My views on gay rights issues are well known. I am not married with four children or anything like that, so there is no suggestion of hypocrisy.” His family and political career suffer as a result and he is not selected for candidacy in the 2007 Irish general election following this incident. He later describes how a journalist from The Gorey Echo first approaches him, “The first few questions were about roads. Then the journalist said, ‘Are you aware you have a profile on this dating website?'” When he confirms that the profile is his, he experiences a sleepless night before The Gorey Echo outs him locally: “I was ringing around people I knew and my parents were ringing around people … my grandmother didn’t know and a lot of my extended family and my friends didn’t know.” Gorey Echo group editor Tom Mooney defends the publication by saying he believes Byrne’s behaviour to be “unfitting of a public representative.”

Byrne is a candidate for Fianna Fáil in the 2016 Irish general election in the Wexford constituency, but does not win a seat.

Byrne contests the 2019 European Parliament election for Fianna Fail in the South constituency, having unexpectedly beaten Cork TD Billy Kelleher in the vote for the party’s nomination. However, Kelleher is later added to the ticket. Fianna Fáil then divides the constituency geographically, asking people in counties Carlow, Kilkenny, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow to vote for Byrne, and those in counties Cork, Kerry, Clare and Limerick to vote for Kelleher. Kelleher wins 11.69% of the first-preference votes (FPV) and is elected on the 17th count. Byrne wins 9.62% of the FPV, and is eliminated on the 16th count.

Byrne is elected as a TD at the 2019 Wexford by-election. Andrew Bolger is co-opted to Byrne’s seat on Wexford County Council following his election to the Dáil. His maiden speech is about housing solutions and the need to address the challenges facing Generation Rent. In an interview he says he can envisage a United Ireland where the 12th of July and Saint Patrick’s Day are public holidays and speaks about how Ireland needs to ensure Unionists feel at home in a new agreed state and that may mean addressing issues such as Ireland joining the Commonwealth.

Byrne loses his Dáil seat at the 2020 Irish general election, following what he calls “a dirty campaign.” His defeat after only 71 days makes him the TD with the second-shortest term of service, after the Anti H-Block TD Kieran Doherty, who dies on hunger strike in August 1981, only 52 days after his election.

On March 31, 2020, Byrne is elected to Seanad Éireann at the 2020 Seanad election. He is named as Fianna Fáil spokesperson on Higher Education, Innovation and Science by Taoiseach Micheál Martin in July 2020.

As a senator, Byrne is a vocal critic of human rights abuses in China. In February 2021, he becomes co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, along with Senator Barry Ward of Fine Gael. Byrne is a member of the cross-party Oireachtas Friends of Israel in the Oireachtas.

At the 2024 Irish general election, Byrne is elected to the Dáil. He is subsequently appointed Cathaoirleach of the Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence.

Byrne is openly gay. As of 2020, he is single and describes politics as “almost like an addiction,” which makes relationships difficult. He lives in Gorey.

In March 2025, Byrne is injured during the theft of his phone in London.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Kate O’Connell, Former Fine Gael Politician

Katherine O’Connell (née Newman), a former Fine Gael politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Bay South constituency from 2016 to 2020, is born in Kilbeggan, County Westmeath, on January 3, 1980. During her time in the Dáil, O’Connell campaigns in favour of abortion rights as well as pushes for more funding for healthcare services in Ireland.

From 1999 to 2003, O’Connell studies to be a pharmacist at the University of Brighton, graduating with an M Pharm in the United Kingdom. She then works as a hospital pre-registrar in the Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, before returning to Ireland to practice as a locum-pharmacist. By 2006, she and her husband open up their first pharmacy in Sandyford, and later open up pharmacies in Rathgar, and Rathfarnham.

O’Connell is a member of Dublin City Council for the local electoral area of Rathgar–Rathmines from 2014 to 2016.

O’Connell is selected by Fine Gael for the 2016 Irish general election to “recapture” their seat in Dublin Bay South from Lucinda Creighton, who had left the party in 2013 over her objection to the party’s position on abortion and in 2015 founded Renua, an anti-abortion party. During the campaign, O’Connell called Creighton’s anti-abortion views “incredibly sanctimonious” and suggests that Creighton is an “out of touch career politician” whose views on abortion are borne out of a lack of connection with the real world. The Irish Independent refers to these comments as O’Connell “tearing strips off” of Creighton. In the election, O’Connell is elected, while Creighton loses her seat.

In her time in the Dáil, O’Connell campaigns in favour of abortion rights as well as pushing for more funding for healthcare services in Ireland.

In October 2016, O’Connell responds to comments by the Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin that TDs should remember their faith when legislating for abortion in Ireland by stating, “I don’t see why the archbishop’s views are in any way relevant. I don’t see why Archbishop Martin should be getting involved in women’s health issues. It is the same as asking my four-year-old. They [the Church] are entitled to their opinion, but I don’t put any weight in them. I don’t see what involvement the Catholic Church should have in women’s health issues”.

In November 2017, O’Connell confronts Barry Walsh, a member of Fine Gael’s executive council, with a dossier of tweets documenting that he repeatedly and frequently derogates women politicians, often calling them bitches, including fellow members of Fine Gael. After the leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar comments that Walsh should resign, he does so.

O’Connell loses her seat at the 2020 Irish general election, placing 5th in the 4-seat constituency. In an August 2020 interview, she attributes her loss, in part, to being the running mate of the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, in an election fought over an ongoing housing crisis in Ireland.

On May 7, 2021, O’Connell declares she will not seek to be the Fine Gael candidate for the 2021 Dublin Bay South by-election. She suggests she will not be able to win a party selection again due to her relationship with the Fine Gael leadership souring in the meantime, partially because of her vocal support of Simon Coveney over Leo Varadkar in the 2017 Fine Gael leadership election. She also suggests many local Fine Gael branch members in Dublin South Bay regard her as an outsider and a “parachute candidate” due to the fact she is originally from County Westmeath, and have turned against her over this. The Phoenix offers the view that O’Connell would not be nominated because she has turned the Fine Gael leadership against her while lobbying for her sister, Mary Newman Julian, to be the party’s candidate in a 2018 Seanad by-election. In particular, a meeting between her and Simon Coveney in which her expectations are read as entitled is cited as hurting her relationships. Fine Gael’s candidate in the by-election is James Geoghegan, who had previously left the party to join Lucinda Creighton in Renua, but returns to Fine Gael after that party collapsed. He loses the by-election to Labour‘s Ivana Bacik, a senator for Dublin University and veteran pro-choice campaigner.

In October 2024, O’Connell leaves Fine Gael to contest the next general election in Dublin Bay South as an independent candidate. She fails to be elected or to achieve the one-quarter of the quota necessary to recoup her election expenses.

O’Connell states her family, the Newmans, have been “involved in Fine Gael since the 1960s,” starting when her maternal grandfather ran for Fine Gael as a councillor. Her father, Michael Newman, is also a Fine Gael councillor while Fine Gael minister Patrick Cooney is considered a family friend. O’Connell states that growing up, she and her family were greatly influenced by the progressive politics of Fine Gael leader Garret FitzGerald. Her sister, Mary Newman Julian, is also active in politics and contests elections for the Dáil in Tipperary and for Seanad Éireann, while another sister, Theresa Newman, works for a period as O’Connell’s political adviser in Leinster House. Her brother-in-law, Hugh O’Connell, is a prominent political journalist and editor who has worked for several Irish publications.

In 2018, during debates in the Dáil regarding abortion, O’Connell discloses personal details of a traumatic pregnancy she herself had experienced. During the pregnancy, she is told her child has only a 10% chance of survival. This prompts her to consider terminating the pregnancy. Ultimately, she decides to continue the pregnancy. The child is born with organs outside of the body but survives the birth. She cites the difficult decisions made during that pregnancy as having greatly informed her views on abortion.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Ciarán Cannon, Former Fine Gael Politician

Ciarán Cannon, former Fine Gael politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Galway East constituency from 2011 to 2024, is born on September 19, 1965, in Galway, County Galway. He previously serves as a Senator for the Progressive Democrats and is the last elected leader of that party. He serves as a Minister of State from 2011 to 2014 and again from 2017 to 2020. He serves as a Senator from 2007 to 2011, after being nominated by the Taoiseach.

Before entering politics, Cannon is a planning official for Galway City Council and Dublin City Council, as well as CEO and secretary of the Irish Pilgrimage Trust. In 2002, he is honoured as one of the Galway People of the Year.

As a member of the Progressive Democrats, Cannon is elected to Galway County Council in the 2004 Irish local elections, to represent the Loughrea local electoral area, with 1,307 first preferences. He is an unsuccessful candidate at the 2007 Irish general election in Galway East. He is nominated by the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to the 23rd Seanad in 2007.

Cannon is elected as Leader of the Progressive Democrats in April 2008. He is the first leader of the party to sit as a Senator while serving as leader. At his first press conference as party leader, he states that he believes “there was passion, commitment, talent and knowledge within the PDs’ ranks to stage a big comeback.”

However, after speculation increases that Noel Grealish, one of the two Progressive Democrat TDs, intends to leave the party, Cannon announces in September 2008 that a party conference will be held on November 8, 2008, at which he will recommend that the party disband. The delegates present at the conference vote 201–161 to agree with this recommendation.

On March 24, 2009, Cannon announces his decision to resign the leadership of the Progressive Democrats and joins Fine Gael the same day. At the 2011 Irish general election, he is one of two Fine Gael TDs elected in Galway East.

On March 10, 2011, Cannon is appointed by the coalition government led by Enda Kenny as Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills with responsibility for Training and Skills. He is dropped as a minister in a reshuffle on July 15, 2014. At the 2016 Irish general election, he is elected to the third seat in Galway East.

On June 20, 2017, Cannon is appointed by the minority government led by Leo Varadkar as Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade with responsibility for the Diaspora and International Development. He calls for a “No” vote in the 2018 referendum to allow legislation on abortion.

In 2019, in recognition of his work in education, Cannon is appointed as a UNICEF global champion for education. He is one of seven Generation Unlimited Champions who advocates worldwide for the development of UNICEF’s Gen U programme.

At the 2020 Irish general election, Cannon is elected to the second seat in Galway East. He continues to serve as a minister of state until the formation of a new government on June 27, 2020.

On March 19, 2024, Cannon announces that he will not contest the next general election, blaming a “toxicity in politics.”

Cannon is a musician and songwriter, and recently collaborated with Irish folk singer Seán Keane and others on songwriting projects. One of his co-compositions, “Nature’s Little Symphony,” is performed in Dublin by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as part of the national Cruinniú celebrations on Easter Monday 2017. Both “Nature’s Little Symphony” and another of his compositions, “Gratitude,” are featured on the album Gratitude recorded by Keane and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in 2018. On the August 10, 2018, Cannon plays piano with Keane and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra as part of a sold-out performance at the National Concert Hall. In 2019, he composes “An Túr,” a short piano instrumental to celebrate the birthday of W. B. Yeats.

In 2021 Cannon is commissioned to compose the soundtrack to a poem by Emily Cullen as part of the national commemoration of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921.

In March 2024, Cannon begins presenting The Grey Lake Cafe, a radio show on Loughrea Community Radio featuring his own musical choices, and interviews with public figures who have a passion for music.

Cannon is also an avid cyclist and cycling safety advocate. He specialises in endurance cycling challenges and on June 19, 2021, he cycles Ireland end to end, a distance of 575 km, in 23 hours and 23 minutes, to raise money for charity.

On July 2, 2021, Cannon is involved in a road traffic collision and suffers serious injuries. On July 2, 2022 he marks the first anniversary of the incident by cycling 500 km around the border of County Galway. Marking the same date in 2023, he cycles 935 km (581 mi) in 56 hours, covering all 32 counties of the island of Ireland while fundraising for Hand In Hand, a charity that supports families challenged by childhood cancer.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Michael Noonan, Former Fine Gael Politician

Michael Noonan, former Fine Gael politician, is born in Limerick, County Limerick, on May 21, 1943. He has been a member of every Fine Gael cabinet since 1982, serving in the cabinets of Garret FitzGerald, John Bruton and Enda Kenny.

The son of a local school teacher, Noonan is raised in Loughill, County Limerick. He is educated at the local National School and St. Patrick’s Secondary School in Glin, before studying to be a primary school teacher at St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, Dublin. He subsequently completes a BA and H.Dip. in English and Economics at University College Dublin (UCD). He begins to work as a secondary school teacher in Dublin. He develops an interest in politics from his mother, whose family had been heavily involved in Fine Gael at the local level in Limerick, and joins the Dublin branch of the party after graduating from university.

Having been involved in the local Fine Gael organisation in Limerick since the late 1960s, Noonan first holds political office in 1974, when he is elected as a member of Limerick County Council. Having built up a local profile he contests the 1981 Irish general election for the party and secures a seat in Limerick East. Upon taking his Dáil seat, he becomes a full-time politician, giving up his teaching post and resigning his seat on Limerick County Council. Though Fine Gael forms a coalition government with the Labour Party, as a first time Teachta Dála (TD), he remains on the backbenches. He serves as a TD from 1981 to 2020.

Noonan serves Minister for Justice from 1982 to 1986, Minister for Energy from January 1987 to March 1987, Minister for Industry and Commerce from 1986 to 1987, Minister for Health from 1994 to 1997, Leader of the Opposition and Leader of Fine Gael from 2001 to 2002, and Minister for Finance from 2011 to 2017.

In May 2017, Noonan announces he will be stepping down as Minister for Finance in the coming weeks when a new Taoiseach was appointed, and as a member of the Dáil at the next general election.

Noonan marries Florence Knightley, a native of Castlemaine, County Kerry and a primary school teacher, in 1969. They have three sons (Tim, John and Michael) and two daughters (Orla and Deirdre). In May 2010, Noonan appears on RTÉ‘s The Frontline to talk about his wife’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Florence Noonan dies on February 23, 2012 of pneumonia.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Mary Lou McDonald, Current President of Sinn Féin

Mary Louise McDonald, Irish politician and President of Sinn Féin since February 2018, is born in Dublin on May 1, 1969.

McDonald is born into a middle-class family in south Dublin. Her father Patrick McDonald, a builder and surveyor, and her mother Joan, separate when she is nine years old, and she stays with her mother in Rathgar. She has three siblings, one older and two younger. Her great-uncle, James O’Connor, was a member of the Anti-Treaty IRA and was executed at the Curragh Camp during the Irish Civil War.

McDonald is educated at Rathgar National School and at the Catholic all-girls, Notre Dame des Missions in Churchtown, South Dublin, where she is involved in debating. She then attends Trinity College Dublin (TCD), the University of Limerick and Dublin City University (DCU), studying English Literature, European Integration Studies and Human Resource Management.

She works as a researcher for the Institute of European Affairs, a consultant for the Irish Productivity Centre, a human resources consultancy that is jointly operated by Ibec and Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), and a trainer in the Partnership Unit of the Educational and Training Services Trust.

McDonald starts her political career by first joining Fianna Fáil in 1998 but leaves the party after a year due to core policy differences, particularly in relation to Northern Ireland and social justice. She quickly realises that Sinn Féin is a more appropriate party for her Republican views after meeting Sinn Féin members through the Irish National Congress.

She first runs for office at the 2002 Irish general election when she unsuccessfully contests the Dublin West constituency for Sinn Féin, polling 8.02% of first preference votes.

In 2004, McDonald becomes Sinn Féin’s first Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in Ireland, when she is elected at the 2004 European Parliament election in Ireland for the Dublin constituency, receiving over 60,000 first preference votes. She serves until 2009 and is a prominent member of the Employment and Social Affairs committee and Civil Liberties committee.

McDonald is an unsuccessful candidate in the Dublin Central constituency at the 2007 Irish general election. In 2009 she becomes the vice president of Sinn Féin.

McDonald contests the Dublin Central constituency again at the 2011 Irish general election, this time picking up 13.1% of first preference votes. She is successful in taking the last seat in the constituency. Following the election, she becomes Sinn Féin’s Spokesperson for Public Expenditure and Reform and is a member of the Public Accounts Committee from then until 2017.

After her re-election to the Dáil at the 2016 Irish general election, in which she tops the poll in Dublin Central, she becomes Sinn Féin’s All-Ireland Spokesperson for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, which she holds until being elected president of Sinn Féin in 2018.

At a Sinn Féin party conference on November 18, 2017, Gerry Adams is re-elected party leader but announces that he will ask party leadership to call for a special Ard Fheis to be held within three months to choose a new president, and that he will not stand for re-election as TD for the Louth constituency in the next election.

At the close of nominations to succeed Adams on January 20, 2018, McDonald is announced as the president-elect of Sinn Féin, as she is the sole nominee to enter the race. She is confirmed as president at a special Ard Fheis on February 10, 2018, in Dublin.

McDonald is nominated as Taoiseach on February 20, 2020, but is defeated 45 to 84. On June 26, 2020, Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Green Party form a coalition government, leaving Sinn Féin as the largest opposition party, and McDonald as Leader of the Opposition. She dismisses the coalition agreement as a “marriage of convenience,” and accuses Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael of conspiring to exclude Sinn Féin from government.

At the 2024 Irish general election, McDonald is re-elected to the Dáil topping the poll in Dublin Central with Sinn Féin increasing their seat share by two seats, remaining the second largest party by representation in the Dáil and attaining 19% of the first preference votes, a fall of 5.5% from 2020 and fall behind Fianna Fáil by 2.9% and Fine Gael by 1.8%.

McDonald is again nominated as Taoiseach on December 18, 2024, but is defeated 44 to 110.

McDonald’s husband, Martin Lanigan, works as a gas control superintendent for the emergency dispatch division of Gas Networks Ireland, a state infrastructure provider. They have two children and live in Cabra, Dublin.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party TD for Dublin West

Ruth Coppinger, Irish politician and member of the Socialist Party, and Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin West constituency, is born in Dublin on April 18, 1967.

Coppinger is a member of Fingal County Council for the Mulhuddart local electoral area from 2003 to 2014. She is co-opted to the council in 2003, replacing Joe Higgins, and is elected in 2004 and re-elected in 2009. She is an unsuccessful candidate for the Socialist Party at the 2011 Dublin West by-election.

Following victory in the 2014 Dublin West by-election, Coppinger joins her party colleague Joe Higgins in the Dáil. After being elected, she calls for a mass campaign of opposition to water charges being implemented by the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition.

In November 2014, Coppinger calls for the gradual nationalisation of U.S. multinationals to prevent job losses. In response, Fianna Fáil’s jobs spokesperson Dara Calleary calls the idea “reckless and ludicrous,” as it would “place a massive burden on taxpayers and the public finances.”

In September 2015, Coppinger joins homeless families from Blanchardstown, in occupying a NAMA-controlled property as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the housing crisis. In October 2015, she joins families in their occupation of a show house in her constituency, to protest the lack of availability of affordable social housing. She also supports the tenants of Tyrrelstown, who are made homeless when a Goldman Sachs vulture fund sells their houses.

Coppinger is re-elected to the Dáil at the 2016 Irish general election, this time under the Anti-Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit banner. On March 10. 2016, at the first sitting of the 32nd Dáil, she nominates Richard Boyd Barrett for the office of Taoiseach, quoting James Connolly from a hundred years previously when she says, “The day has passed for patching up the capitalist system. It must go,” and declaring, “We will not vote for the identical twin candidates” of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil after they “imposed austerity.” On April 6, 2016, following the failure of the Dáil to elect a Taoiseach at that first sitting, she is nominated for the role of Taoiseach, becoming the first female nominee in the history of the state.

In 2018 Coppinger praises the MeToo movement for exposing patterns of abuse and systemic inequality. However, she also notes the limitations of achieving justice through traditional channels and calls for a stronger focus on combating intimate partner violence and societal tolerance of such abuse.

In April 2018, in the lead-up to the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, Coppinger, along with her colleague Paul Murphy, holds up a Repeal sign during leader’s questions and is reprimanded by the Ceann Comhairle. She is an advocate for abortion rights in Ireland, and is a founding member of ROSA, a movement for reproductive justice in Ireland. Earlier, in 2016, she tables the private members’ motion to repeal the Eighth Amendment.

In November 2018, Coppinger protests in the Dáil against the conduct of a rape trial in Ireland. During the trial, the defence team, as part of their argument that the sex had been consensual, states that the 17-year-old victim had worn a thong with a lace front. The defendant is subsequently found not guilty. During a sitting of the Dáil, Coppinger holds up a similar pair of underwear and admonishes the conduct of the trial, suggesting victim blaming tactics had been used and suggests this is a routine occurrence in Irish courts. She calls on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to support her party’s bill that would increase sex education in Irish schools and provide additional training to the Irish judiciary and jurors on how to handle cases of rape. Varadkar responds that victims should not be blamed for what happens to them, irrespective of how they are dressed, where they are or if they have consumed alcohol.

In 2019 Coppinger sponsors a private member’s bill – the Domestic Violence (No-contact order) (Amendment) Bill 2019. The bill lapses with the dissolution of the Dáil and Seanad.

At the general election in February 2020, Coppinger is defeated in the Dublin West constituency. She unsuccessfully contests the 2020 Seanad election for the National University of Ireland constituency.

In June 2024, Coppinger is elected to Fingal County Council for the Castleknock local electoral area on the 7th Count. At the 2024 Irish general election, she is re-elected to the Dáil.

Coppinger is an advocate of secularism and believes in abolishing both the Angelus and the Dáil prayer, viewing them as relics of an outdated intertwining of religion and governance. She supports the separation of Church and State, criticising the Catholic Church‘s historical influence in education and health, as well as its financial privileges, including exemptions from accountability under regulations like SIPO. She has called for the requisitioning of Church lands and property, citing the Church’s failure to meet commitments to abuse victims and the necessity of addressing historical injustices.

On drug policy, Coppinger supports decriminalisation and endorses the Portuguese model, which treats addiction as a health issue rather than a criminal matter. She emphasises the hypocrisy of criminalising drug use while overlooking the societal harm caused by alcohol and advocates for expanding access to medicinal cannabis, criticising the political inertia in addressing this need.

In 2013, during referendum to abolish the Irish senate, Coppinger campaigns for a yes vote, calling the institution elitist and undemocratic. However, in 2020, following the loss of her Dáil seat, she runs unsuccessfully for a seat in the Senate. Challenged by the Irish Examiner on this, she states that so long as the Senate continues to exist, it should be used to further progressive causes.

Coppinger lives in Mulhuddart and is a secondary school teacher. Her eldest brother, Eugene Coppinger, serves on Fingal County Council from 2011 to 2019.


by Leave a comment

Birth of Thomas Pringle, Irish Independent Politician

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.