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Birth of D. D. Sheehan, Nationalist Politician & Labour Leader

Daniel Desmond (‘D. D.’) Sheehan, Irish nationalist, politician, labour leader, journalist, barrister and author, is born on May 28, 1873, at Dromtariffe, Kanturk, County Cork.

The eldest of the three sons and one daughter of Daniel Sheehan, tenant farmer, and his wife, Ellen (née Fitzgerald). He is educated at the local primary school. In his book Ireland since Parnell (1921) he states that witnessing the ragged poverty of labourers’ and smallholders’ children who attended the school made him determined to do something for the poor. The family’s Fenian tradition and his parents’ eviction from their holding in 1880 form his early years. At the age of sixteen he becomes a schoolteacher.

In 1890, Sheehan takes up journalism, serving as correspondent of the Kerry Sentinel and special correspondent of the Cork Daily Herald in Killarney. He also becomes correspondence secretary to the Kanturk trade and labour council, which campaigns on behalf of agricultural labourers. He manages to get reports of meetings into the Cork papers, and this helps the rapid spread of the association, which in 1890 becomes the Irish Democratic Trade and Labour Federation, under the leadership of Michael Davitt. It is, however, fatally disrupted by the Parnell split. While Sheehan continues to admire Davitt, and despite the pre-split Irish party leadership having opposed the federation as a threat to Charles Stewart Parnell‘s leadership, he becomes a Parnellite, and always remembers his only meeting with Parnell at Tralee, when the chief is presented with a loyal address (drafted by Sheehan) from his Killarney supporters. After Parnell’s death and the defeat of the Second Home Rule Bill, he temporarily drops out of Irish politics.

Following his marriage on February 6, 1894, to Mary Pauline O’Connor of Tralee, Sheehan joins the staff of the Glasgow Observer in pursuit of journalistic experience, then becomes editor of the Catholic News in Preston, Lancashire. In 1898, he returns to Ireland and works on various papers, including the Cork Constitution, before serving as editor of the Skibbereen-based Cork County Southern Star (1899–1901), where his Parnellism brings him into conflict with the Bishop of Ross, Denis Kelly. He expresses sympathy for the newly founded United Irish League (UIL), established by William O’Brien in Connacht with the dual aim of representing western smallholders and using a new land agitation as a vehicle for Irish Party reunion. He does not, however, join the UIL himself.

In August 1894, the Clonmel solicitor J. J. O’Shee, anti-Parnellite MP for West Waterford from 1895, forms the Irish Land and Labour Association (ILLA) to agitate on behalf of agricultural labourers and small tenant farmers. Its appearance reflects the breakdown of the centralised party discipline which had existed before the Parnell split, and recognition that the land war’s prime beneficiaries had been large and middle-sized tenant farmers rather than the nation as a whole. On returning from Britain in 1898, Sheehan throws himself into organising the ILLA and becomes its president. In 1900 there are 100 branches, mostly in Cork, Tipperary, and Limerick. The Irish Party leadership look on this organisation with some suspicion.

At the 1900 United Kingdom general election in Ireland Sheehan seeks the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) nomination for South Cork but was defeated by Edward Barry. After the death of Dr Charles Tanner, however, he succeeds in obtaining the IPP nomination for the constituency of Mid Cork, despite the party leadership’s attempts to deny recognition to ILLA branches in order to hand the nomination to its favoured candidate. Sheehan is elected unopposed on May 17, 1901. At the age of 28, he is the youngest Irish member of parliament. Although he has been admitted to the party, his position as a labour representative and his perceived independent base make him something of an outsider.

From October 1904 Sheehan allies himself with O’Brien, writing regularly for the latter’s weekly a The Irish People. Redmondites accuse him of opportunism, but he always maintains that his personal inclination as an old Parnellite has been towards John Redmond and that his support for O’Brien derives from the older man’s willingness from 1904 to identify himself with the labourers’ campaign. Although their alliance originally likely contains elements of expediency, Sheehan and O’Brien develop a deep personal friendship.

Sheehan’s support for O’Brien leads to a split in the ILLA in 1906, with Tipperary and Waterford branches following O’Shee and Redmond, and Sheehan retaining the support of his Cork base and of some branches in Limerick and Kerry. He serves on the Cork advisory committee which represents tenant interests in land purchase negotiations under the Wyndham Land Act. It’s policy of “conference plus business” combines an offer to negotiate with willing landlords and a threat of agitation against those unwilling to give satisfactory terms. His faction of the ILLA becomes the basis for the grassroots organisation of O’Brien’s followers, and sporadic attempts, financed by O’Brien, are made to spread it outside its Munster base. Both factions of the ILLA claim credit for the passage of the 1906 and 1911 Labourers’ (Ireland) Acts which provide for the allocation of cottages and smallholdings to labourers. In Cork and some other parts of Munster these buildings become popularly known as “Sheehan’s cottages,” a term which long outlives Sheehan’s political career. He also helps to bring about the creation of a “model village” at Tower, near Blarney, the result of cooperation between the local ILLA branch and the rural district council.

At the 1906 general election the Redmond leadership attempts to avoid an open split by allowing O’Brien’s supporters to return unopposed. However, the continuing conflict between the two factions rapidly leads to a formal break. Shortly after the election Sheehan is excluded from the IPP, and thereby deprived of the parliamentary stipend paid to MPs with insufficient resources to maintain themselves. With the support of O’Brien and the small group of O’Brienite MPs, he maintains that the party has no right to exclude an elected MP willing to take the party pledge. After resigning his seat to which he was re-elected without opposition on December 31, 1906, he demands readmission to the party and mounts an unsuccessful lawsuit demanding payment of the stipend. He is subsequently supported from the proceeds of collections outside church gates on Sundays.

Sheehan and the other O’Brienite MPs are readmitted to the party in 1908 as part of an attempt at general reconciliation after the disruptions following the rejection of the Irish Council Bill. Dissensions rapidly reappear over Augustine Birrell‘s 1909 land act, which the O’Brienites see as wriggling out of the financial responsibilities accepted by the British government in the Wyndham land act and as sabotaging land purchase, since landlords will not accept the terms offered. Sheehan’s section of the ILLA is denied official recognition and thereby prevented from sending delegates to a party convention called to consider the bill. At the convention, groups of “heavies”recruited from Joseph Devlin‘s Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) exclude delegates with Cork accents, while O’Brienite speakers are howled down. This leads to the formation in March 1909 of the All-for-Ireland League (AFIL), a body based on the existing O’Brienite organisation and advocating O’Brien’s policy of gradually implementing home rule through step-by-step cooperation with moderate unionist supporters of devolution. Although O’Brien’s temporary retirement for health reasons in April 1909 leads to the suspension of the AFIL, it is revived in response to an attempted purge of the O’Brienite MPs by the leadership and by O’Brien’s reappearance in response to the January 1910 general election. Sheehan writes regularly for its paper, the Cork Free Press.

In the general election the O’Brienites hold their seats while two Cork Redmondites are displaced. Sheehan is re-elected for Mid Cork, defeating the Redmondite W. G. Fallon in a campaign marked by widespread rioting and impassioned clerical denunciations of Sheehan. Fallon subsequently attempts to get up a “red scare” against the ILLA. The Cork ILLA later splits over Sheehan’s slightly erratic leadership. While the split is initially personality-driven, the breakaway faction, led by Patrick Bradley and centred in east Cork, moves back toward alignment with Redmond. At the December 1910 election the AFIL consolidates its position in Cork, but is defeated everywhere else. Sheehan retains his Mid Cork seat against a local candidate but is defeated in a simultaneous contest in East Limerick. He is also defeated when he stands for Cork County Council in June 1911, though the AFIL wins control of that body.

Sheehan studies law at University College Cork (UCC) (1908–09), where he is an exhibitioner and prizeman, and at King’s Inns, where he graduated with honours. He is called to the bar in 1911 and practised on the Munster circuit. In 1913–14 he is active in the AFIL’s attempts to avert partition by trying to recruit sections of British political opinion in favour of a conference between the parties. He becomes vice-chairman of the Imperial Federation League. This receives considerable attention among the British political classes but contributes to the decline of the AFIL’s electoral base. The policy of conciliation has been driven to a considerable extent by the belief that it is the only way of achieving home rule. The abolition of the House of Lords’ veto and the introduction of the third home rule bill by the Asquith government undercuts this argument and increases Redmond’s prestige, while AFIL denunciations of Redmondism are seen as driven by personal resentment and playing into the hands of unionists. The decision of the AFIL MPs to abstain from supporting the bill on its final passage through the House of Commons in 1914 as a protest against the prospect of a partition-based compromise is represented by Redmondites as a vote against home rule itself and contributed to AFIL loss of Cork County Council in June 1914.

On the outbreak of World War I, Sheehan supports O’Brien in calling for Irish enlistment for foreign service. In November 1914, at the age of forty-two, he enlists himself and is gazetted as a lieutenant in the Royal Munster Fusiliers. It is claimed that he is almost single-handedly responsible for raising the 9th (service) battalion of this regiment. Three of his sons also enlist. Two of his sons are killed in action with the Royal Flying Corps, and a daughter is disabled by injuries received in an air raid while serving as a nurse. In the spring and summer of 1915 he organises and leads recruiting campaigns in Cork, Limerick, and Clare. This is part of a nationwide drive for recruits, aimed in particular at the farming community, which reflects the realisation that the war is going to last much longer than expected.

In 1915, Sheehan is promoted to the rank of captain and serves with his battalion on the Loos-en-Gohelle salient and at the Battle of the Somme, contributing a series of articles from the trenches to the London Daily Express. Various ailments, including deafness caused by shellfire, and hospitalisation necessitate his transfer to the 3rd Royal Munster Fusiliers (Reserve) Battalion, and he resigns his commission on January 13, 1918, due to ill health. In April 1918 he speaks at Westminster against the bill extending conscription to Ireland, threatening to resist it by force. One of his last parliamentary speeches (in October 1918) is in support of a bill providing land grants for Irish ex-servicemen. With the growth of Sinn Féin and the virtual demise of the AFIL, his position in Cork grows increasingly untenable. The Sheehan family faces intimidation and are obliged to leave their home on the Victoria Road for London, where he has secured the Labour Party nomination for the Limehouse–Stepney division of the East End, later represented by Clement Attlee.

Sheehan is unsuccessful in the 1918 United Kingdom general election, and is obliged to leave politics after a financially disastrous involvement in an Achill Island mining company leads to his bankruptcy. Unable to practise at the bar because of the hearing loss caused by his war service, he returns to journalism and becomes editor and publisher of The Stadium, a daily newspaper for sportsmen. In 1921, shortly before the Anglo-Irish truce, he publishes Ireland since Parnell, a history of recent events heavily dependent on the writings of O’Brien but incorporating some personal reminiscences. It concludes by blaming the outbreak of the IRA guerrilla campaign on provocation by Crown forces, denouncing reprisals, and pleading for British recognition of Dáil Éireann and dominion home rule for an undivided Ireland.

Sheehan moves to Dublin in 1926 after hearing that the threats against him have been lifted. His wife, who has never fully recovered from the stresses and bereavements she has experienced since 1914, dies soon afterward. Sheehan himself becomes managing editor of Irish Press and Publicity Services and, in 1928, publisher and editor of the South Dublin Chronicle. The paper gives critical support to the Irish Labour Party, publishes campaigning articles on slum conditions, and advocates housing reform. In September 1930, he is an unsuccessful Labour candidate for Dublin County Council. In the 1930s, as his health deteriorates further, he works as coordinator for the ex-servicemen’s group the Old Comrades’ Association, editing both northern and southern editions of its annual journal. In 1942, he offers himself to Richard Mulcahy as a Fine Gael candidate for Cork South-East, but is turned down. He dies on November 28, 1948, while visiting his daughter at Queen Anne Street, London. Both he and his wife are buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

(From: “Sheehan, Daniel Desmond (‘D. D.’)” by Patrick Maume, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Birth of Ivana Bacik, Labour Party Politician

Ivana Catherine Bacik, Irish politician who has been the Leader of the Labour Party since March 24, 2022 and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Bay South constituency since winning a by-election on July 9, 2021, is born in Dublin on May 25, 1968. She comes to prominence due to her abortion rights campaigning from the 1980s onward.

Bacik’s paternal grandfather, Charles Bacik, was a Czech factory owner who moved to Ireland in 1946. He eventually settled in Waterford, County Waterford, and in 1947 was involved in the establishment of Waterford Crystal. Her mother’s side of the family are Murphys from County Clare. Her father is an astronomer and is employed in a number of locations. As a result, she lives in London and South Africa, before moving to Crookstown, County Cork, at the age of six, when he becomes a physics lecturer in the Cork Institute of Technology. She attends the nearby national school in Cloughduv. When she is 11 years old, her family moves to the Sunday’s Well area of Cork city. At the age of 14, she moves to Dublin.

Bacik wins a scholarship to board at Alexandra College in Milltown, Dublin, and is awarded a sizarship at Trinity College Dublin. She has an LL.B. from Trinity and an LL.M. from the London School of Economics.

Bacik contests the Seanad Éireann elections in 1997 and 2002 as an independent candidate for the Dublin University constituency but is not successful.

She runs as a Labour Party candidate at the 2004 election to the European Parliament in the Dublin constituency. She runs with sitting MEP Proinsias De Rossa, who is also the party president, on the same ticket. She polls 40,707 first preference votes (9.6%) but is not elected.

In 2004, Bacik’s book Kicking and Screaming: Dragging Ireland into the 21st Century, is published by The O’Brien Press.

In 2007, she contested the Seanad Éireann elections for the third time in the Dublin University constituency, and is elected to the third seat, behind sitting Independent senators Shane Ross and David Norris. She initially sits as an Independent senator.

In February 2009, Bacik is included in an ‘All Star Women’s Cabinet’ in the Irish Independent. In March 2009, she confirmed claims made on a TV programme that she had taken two voluntary pay cuts of 10% in addition to a pension levy. In June 2009, she is the Labour Party candidate for the Dublin Central by-election. She comes in third with 17% of the first preference votes. She joins the Labour Party group in the Seanad in September 2009, and becomes Labour Party Seanad spokesperson for both Justice and Arts, Sports and Tourism. In November 2009, a feature by Mary Kenny of the Irish Independent includes Bacik in a list of women who “well deserved their iconic status.”

In May 2010, Bacik seeks Labour’s nomination to contest the next election in the Dublin South-East constituency but is not selected. In December 2010, she is added to the ticket as the second candidate beside Labour Party leader, Eamon Gilmore, in the Dún Laoghaire constituency for the 2011 Irish general election. Gilmore tops the poll, with Bacik receiving 10.1% of first preference votes but she is not elected. She is re-elected to Seanad Éireann at the subsequent election, after which she becomes Deputy Leader of the Seanad. She holds her seat in the Seanad in 2016 and in 2020.

On April 27, 2021, after the resignation of Eoghan Murphy from his Dáil seat in Dublin Bay South, Bacik announces her intention to stand in the upcoming by-election. She campaigns with an emphasis on providing affordable housing, as well as improving healthcare and childcare, tackling climate change, and achieving “a true republic in which church and state are separated.” During the campaign, she describes herself as having “more bills passed into law than any other Senator, on issues such as workers’ conditions, women’s health rights, and LGBT equality”. She also campaigns on increasing the number of sports amenities for children in the area, calling for unused Defence Forces football fields at the Cathal Brugha Barracks to be freed up for local sports, with the suggestion rejected by Fine Gael Minister for Defence Simon Coveney. Fine Gael complains to RTÉ after she features prominently on National Treasures, a prime-time TV show broadcast by RTÉ during the campaign. RTÉ has strict rules about fair coverage of candidates during campaigns. The national broadcaster blames an “inadvertent error” for the programme being shown three days before the election. A steering group within the broadcaster tells Fine Gael that “the broadcast should not have happened.” Consequentially, RTÉ has to show a special report on the by-election on Prime Time to “ensure fair coverage is given to all candidates.”

Bacik wins this election, receiving 8,131 (30.2%) first-preference votes. It is her fourth attempt as a Labour candidate, and she expresses her delight at the success at the count centre in the RDS. Following the election, she is described by The Irish Times as “a formidable activist and public intellectual” and that Fine Gael’s perceived antipathy towards their former TD, Kate O’Connell, may have contributed to the surge in support to Bacik from women voters. The newspaper claims that her election is “a long overdue morale boost” for Labour.

In August 2021, Bacik apologises for attending Katherine Zappone‘s controversial party in the Merrion Hotel, Dublin, in July of that year. She states that she believed that it took place within existing COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

In March 2022, Bacik confirms she will run to succeed Alan Kelly as Labour Party leader. Kelly states that he believes that Bacik will succeed him. On March 24, 2022, she is confirmed as Labour Party leader unopposed at a party conference in Dublin. In a speech, she says she will focus on the rising cost of living and the serious and global problems facing the country. She pledges that Labour will fight the next election as a “standalone party” rather than joining any left-wing alliance.

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

Bacik lives with husband Alan Saul and their two daughters in Portobello, Dublin.


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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.


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Death of James Tully, Labour Party Politician & Trade Unionist

James Tully, Irish Labour Party politician and trade unionist, dies in Navan, County Meath, on May 20, 1992. He serves as Minister for Defence from 1981 to 1982, Deputy leader of the Labour Party from 1981 to 1982 and Minister for Local Government from 1973 to 1977. He serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Meath constituency from 1954 to 1957 and 1961 to 1982.

A native of Carlanstown, near Kells in the north of County Meath, Tully is educated in Carlanstown schools and in St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan. He is elected to Dáil Éireann as a Labour Party TD for the Meath constituency at the 1954 Irish general election. He loses his seat at the 1957 Irish general election, but is re-elected at the 1961 Irish general election and serves until 1982. When Labour enters into a coalition government with Fine Gael in 1973, he is appointed Minister for Local Government. While serving in that post he gains prominence for a massive increase in the building of public housing, and notoriety for an attempt to gerrymander Irish constituencies to ensure the re-election of the National Coalition at the 1977 Irish general election. His electoral reorganisation effort via the Electoral (Amendment) Act 1974, which comes to be called a “Tullymander,” backfires spectacularly and helps engineer a landslide for the opposition, Fianna Fáil. He is regarded as a conservative within the Labour Party, though tends to support party decisions, even if he disagrees with them. For many years he is opposed to coalition, though finding the years in opposition fruitless, he changes his mind and becomes increasingly in favour of coalition with Fine Gael.

Also as Minister for Local Government, Tully decides on alterations to the plans for the controversial Dublin Corporation Civic Offices.

Tully is appointed deputy leader of the Labour Party under Michael O’Leary in 1981, and Minister for Defence in the short-lived 1981–82 Fine Gael-Labour Party government. In that capacity he travels to Cairo, in 1981, as the Republic of Ireland‘s representative in Egypt‘s annual October 6 military victory parade. While in the reviewing stand, next to President Anwar Sadat, he suffers a shrapnel injury to his face when Sadat was assassinated by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who had infiltrated the Egyptian Army.

In 1982, a few months after the event, Tully retires from politics. He dies ten years later, on May 20, 1992, at the age of 76.

(Pictured: Portrait of James Tully taken from his 1954 election poster)


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Birth of Richard Mulcahy, Fine Gael Politician & Army General

Richard James Mulcahy, Irish Fine Gael politician and army general, is born in Manor Street, Waterford, County Waterford, on May 10, 1886, the son of post office clerk Patrick Mulcahy and Elizabeth Slattery. He is educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father is the postmaster.

Mulcahy joins the Royal Mail (Post Office Engineering Dept.) in 1902, and works in Thurles, Bantry, Wexford and Dublin. He is a member of the Gaelic League and joins the Irish Volunteers at the time of their formation in 1913. He is also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

Mulcahy is second-in-command to Thomas Ashe in an encounter with the armed Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) at Ashbourne, County Meath, during the 1916 Easter Rising, one of the few stand-out victories won by republicans in that week and generally credited to Mulcahy’s grasp of tactics. In his book on the Rising, Charles Townshend principally credits Mulcahy with the defeat of the RIC at Ashbourne, for conceiving and leading a flanking movement on the RIC column that had engaged with the Irish Volunteers. Arrested after the Rising, he is interned at Knutsford and at the Frongoch internment camp in Wales until his release on December 24, 1916.

On his release, Mulcahy immediately rejoins the republican movement and becomes commandant of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers. He is elected to the First Dáil in the 1918 Irish general election for Dublin Clontarf. He is then named Minister for Defence in the new government and later Assistant Minister for Defence. In March 1918, he becomes Irish Republican Army (IRA) chief of staff, a position he holds until January 1922.

Mulcahy and Michael Collins are largely responsible for directing the military campaign against the British during the Irish War of Independence. During this period of upheaval in 1919, he marries Mary Josephine (Min) Ryan, sister of Kate and Phyllis Ryan, the successive wives of Seán T. O’Kelly. Her brother is James Ryan. O’Kelly and Ryan both later serve in Fianna Fáil governments.

Mulcahy supports the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. Archive film shows that Mulcahy, as Minister of Defence, is the Irish officer who raises the Irish tricolour at the first hand-over of a British barracks to the National Army in January 1922. He is defence minister in the Provisional Government on its creation and succeeds Collins, after the latter’s assassination, as Commander-in-Chief of the Provisional Government’s forces during the subsequent Irish Civil War.

Mulcahy earns notoriety through his order that anti-Treaty activists captured carrying arms are liable for execution. A total of 77 anti-Treaty prisoners are executed by the Provisional Government. He serves as Minister for Defence in the new Free State government from January 1924 until March 1924, but resigns in protest because of the sacking of the Army Council after criticism by the Executive Council over the handling of the “Army Mutiny,” when some National Army War of Independence officers almost revolt after he demobilises many of them at the end of the Irish Civil War. He re-enters the cabinet as Minister for Local Government and Public Health in 1927.

During Mulcahy’s period on the backbenches of Dáil Éireann his electoral record fluctuates. He is elected as TD for Dublin North-West at the 1921 and 1922 Irish general elections. He moves to Dublin North for the election the following year and is re-elected there in four further elections: June 1927, September 1927, 1932, and 1933.

Dublin North is abolished for the 1937 Irish general election, at which Mulcahy is defeated in the new constituency of Dublin North-East. However, he secures election to Seanad Éireann as a Senator, the upper house of the Oireachtas, representing the Administrative Panel. The 2nd Seanad sits for less than two months, and at the 1938 Irish general election he is elected to the 10th Dáil as a TD for Dublin North-East. Defeated again in the 1943 Irish general election, he secures election to the 4th Seanad by the Labour Panel.

After the resignation of W. T. Cosgrave as Leader of Fine Gael in 1944, Mulcahy becomes party leader while still a member of the Seanad. Thomas F. O’Higgins is parliamentary leader of the party in the Dáil at the time and Leader of the Opposition. Facing his first general election as party leader, Mulcahy draws up a list of 13 young candidates to contest seats for Fine Gael. Of the eight who run, four are elected. He is returned again to the 12th Dáil as a TD for Tipperary at the 1944 Irish general election. While Fine Gael’s decline had been slowed, its future is still in doubt.

Following the 1948 Irish general election Mulcahy is elected for Tipperary South, but the dominant Fianna Fáil party finishes six seats short of a majority. However, it is 37 seats ahead of Fine Gael, and conventional wisdom suggests that Fianna Fáil is the only party that can possibly form a government. Just as negotiations get underway, however, Mulcahy realises that if Fine Gael, the Labour Party, the National Labour Party, Clann na Poblachta and Clann na Talmhan band together, they would have only one seat fewer than Fianna Fáil and, if they can get support from seven independents, they will be able to form a government. He plays a leading role in persuading the other parties to put aside their differences and join forces to consign the then Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Éamon de Valera, to the opposition benches.

Mulcahy initially seems set to become Taoiseach in a coalition government. However, he is not acceptable to Clann na Poblachta’s leader, Seán MacBride. Many Irish republicans had never forgiven him for his role in the Irish Civil War executions carried out under the Cosgrave government in the 1920s. Consequently, MacBride lets it be known that he and his party will not serve under Mulcahy. Without Clann na Poblachta, the other parties would have 57 seats between them — 17 seats short of a majority in the 147-seat Dáil. According to Mulcahy, the suggestion that another person serve as Taoiseach comes from Labour leader William Norton. He steps aside and encourages his party colleague John A. Costello, a former Attorney General of Ireland, to become the parliamentary leader of Fine Gael and the coalition’s candidate for Taoiseach. For the next decade, Costello serves as the party’s parliamentary leader while Mulcahy remained the nominal leader of the party.

Mulcahy goes on to serve as Minister for Education under Costello from 1948 until 1951. Another coalition government comes to power at the 1954 Irish general election, with Mulcahy once again stepping aside to become Minister for Education in the Second Inter-Party Government. The government falls in 1957, but he remains as Fine Gael leader until October 1959. In October the following year, he tells his Tipperary constituents that he does not intend to contest the next election.

Mulcahy dies from natural causes at the age of 85 in Dublin on December 16, 1971. He is buried in Littleton, County Tipperary.


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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.


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Birth of Tim Pat Coogan, Journalist, Writer & Broadcaster

Timothy Patrick “Tim Pat” Coogan, Irish journalist, writer and broadcaster, is born in Monkstown, County Dublin, on April 22, 1935. He serves as editor of The Irish Press newspaper from 1968 to 1987. He is best known for such books as The IRA (1970) and On the Blanket: The H Block Story (1980), and biographies of Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera.

Coogan’s particular focus is on Ireland’s nationalist/independence movement in the 20th century, a period of unprecedented political upheaval. He blames the Troubles in Northern Ireland on “Paisleyism.”

Coogan is the first of three children born to Beatrice (née Toal) and Eamonn Coogan, a native of Kilkenny who is an Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer during the Irish War of Independence and later serves as the first Deputy Commissioner of the newly established Garda Síochána, then a Fine Gael TD for the Kilkenny constituency. His mother, the daughter of a policeman, is a Dublin socialite who is crowned Dublin’s Civic Queen of Beauty in 1927. She writes for the Evening Herald and takes part in various productions in the Abbey Theatre and Radio Éireann. He spends many summer holidays in the town of Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, his father’s hometown.

A former student of the Irish Christian Brothers in Dún Laoghaire and Belvedere College in Dublin, Coogan spends most of his secondary studies at Blackrock College in Dublin.

In 2000, Irish writer and editor Ruth Dudley Edwards is awarded £25,000 damages and a public apology by the High Court in London against Coogan for factual errors in references to her in his book Wherever Green is Worn: The Story of the Irish Diaspora (2000). In the book, he writes that Dudley Edwards had “groveled to and hypocritically ingratiated herself with the English establishment to further her writing career.” He also alleges that Dudley Edwards “had abused the position of chairwoman of the British Association for Irish Studies (BAIS) by trying to impose her political views on it” and that her commission to write True Brits had been awarded because of political favouritism.

When Taoiseach Enda Kenny causes confusion following a speech at Béal na Bláth by incorrectly claiming Michael Collins had brought Lenin to Ireland, Coogan comments, “Those were the days when bishops were bishops and Lenin was a communist. How would that have gone down with the churchyard collections?”

In November 2012, for reasons that are uncertain, the United States embassy in Dublin refuses to grant Coogan a visa to visit the United States. As a result, a planned book tour for his book The Famine Plot, England’s role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy (2012) is cancelled. After representations to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by United States Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Congressman Peter T. King (R-NY), he receives his visa.

Coogan has been criticised by the Irish historians Liam Kennedy and Diarmaid Ferriter, as well as Cormac Ó Gráda, for a supposed lack of thoroughness in his research and bias:

“Well, I waited in this book to hear some great revelation, and it just isn’t there. It’s anticlimactic. I could not see the great plot, and indeed there is no serious historian who … I can’t think of a single historian who has researched the Famine in depth – and Tim Pat has not researched it in depth” (The Famine Plot).

“Coogan is not remotely interested in looking at what others have written on 20th-century Irish history…. he does not appear interested in context and shows scant regard for evidence. He does not attempt to offer any sustained analysis in relation to the challenges of state building, the meaning of sovereignty, economic and cultural transformations, or comparative perspectives on the evolution of Irish society. There is no indication whatsoever that Coogan has engaged with the abundant archival material relating to the subject matter he pronounces on. There is no rhyme or reason when it comes to the citation of the many quotations he uses; the vast majority are not referenced. For the 300-page text, 21 endnotes are cited and six of them relate to Coogan’s previous books, a reminder that much of this tome consists of recycled material…. Tim Pat Coogan… he is a decent, compassionate man who has made a significant contribution to Irish life. But he has not read up on Irish history; indeed, such is the paucity of his research efforts that this book amounts to a travesty of 20th-century Irish history” (1916: The Mornings After).


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Birth of Eric Byrne, Former TD and Labour Party Politician

Eric Joseph Byrne, former Labour Party politician who serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South-Central constituency from 1989 to 1992, 1994 to 1997 and 2011 to 2016, is born in Dublin on April 21, 1947. He is formerly a member of Official Sinn Féin, the Workers’ Party and Democratic Left.

Byrne is educated at Synge Street CBS and the Bolton Street College of Technology. A carpenter before entering politics, he stands unsuccessfully for election to Dáil Éireann as a Workers’ Party candidate for Dublin Rathmines West at the 1977 Irish general election and Dublin South-Central at the 1981, February 1982, November 1982 and 1987 Irish general elections.

He is elected in 1985 as a Workers’ Party member of Dublin City Council for Crumlin–Kimmage area, and is re-elected at subsequent local elections until 2011, when he is forced to resign his seat due to dual mandate. He is finally elected at the 1989 Irish general election. He joins with Workers’ Party members who form Democratic Left in 1992. He unexpectedly loses his seat at the 1992 Irish general election. Labour’s Pat Upton is unexpectedly returned on the first count, with Byrne finally losing the last seat to Fianna Fáil‘s Ben Briscoe by five votes after a marathon 10-day count.

Byrne is elected to the 27th Dáil at a by-election on June 9, 1994, following the resignation of long-serving Fianna Fáil TD John O’Connell, who had previously been a Labour TD for the same constituency. He is a backbench supporter of the Rainbow government led by Fine Gael‘s John Bruton.

He loses his seat again at the 1997 Irish general election. Although the Labour Party and the Democratic Left merge in 1999, he is not selected to contest the Dublin South-Central by-election which follows Pat Upton‘s death later that year. Upton’s sister Mary is elected for the Labour Party.

Byrne contests the 2002 Irish general election on the Labour Party ticket as Mary Upton’s running-mate but is unsuccessful. Along with Upton, he contests the Dublin South-Central constituency at the 2007 Irish general election advocating a Labour Party/Fine Gael government but misses the final seat by 69 votes. He is nominated by the Labour Party to contest the Seanad election in the Labour panel but is not elected. In 2009, he is re-elected to Dublin City Council. At the 2011 Irish general election he is re-elected to the Dáil, after a fourteen-year absence.

In January 2015, Byrne becomes involved in an altercation with Sinn Féin TD, Jonathan O’Brien. During ministers’ questions, O’Brien criticises Tánaiste Joan Burton over homelessness in Ireland, citing the experiences of his brother, a recovering heroin addict. Byrne asks of O’Brien, “Why doesn’t his good family give him a home?” This infuriates O’Brien. The Irish Times journalist Miriam Lord criticizes Byrne, remarking that “You sense the relief rising in the chamber. They don’t like it when the real world intrudes. These sort of things don’t really happen to TDs.”

Byrne loses his seat at the 2016 Irish general election.


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Birth of Alan Dukes, Former Fine Gael Politician

Alan Martin Dukes, former Fine Gael politician, is born in Drimnagh, Dublin, on April 20, 1945. He holds several senior government positions and serves as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1981 to 2002. He is one of the few TDs to be appointed a minister on their first day in the Dáil.

His father, James F. Dukes, is originally from Tralee, County Kerry, and is a senior civil servant and the founding chairman and chief executive of the Higher Education Authority (HEA), while his mother is from near Ballina, County Mayo.

The Dukes family originally comes from the north of England. His grandfather serves with the Royal Engineers in World War I and settles in County Cork and then County Kerry afterward where he works with the Post Office creating Ireland’s telephone network.

Dukes is educated by the Christian Brothers at Coláiste Mhuire, Dublin, and is offered several scholarships for third level on graduation, including one for the Irish language. His interest in the Irish language continues to this day, and he regularly appears on Irish-language television programmes.

On leaving school he attends University College Dublin (UCD), where he captains the fencing team to its first-ever Intervarsity title.

Dukes becomes an economist with the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in Dublin in 1969. After Ireland joins the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, he moves to Brussels where he is part of the IFA delegation. In this role, he is influential in framing Ireland’s contribution to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). He is appointed as chief of staff to Ireland’s EEC commissioner Richard Burke, a former Fine Gael politician.

In the 1979 European Parliament election, Dukes stands as a Fine Gael candidate in the Munster constituency. He has strong support among the farming community, but the entry of T. J. Maher, a former president of the IFA, as an independent candidate hurts his chances of election. Maher tops the poll.

He stands again for Fine Gael at the 1981 Irish general election in the expanded Kildare constituency, where he wins a seat in the 22nd Dáil. On his first day in the Dáil, he is appointed Minister for Agriculture by the Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, becoming one of only eight TDs so appointed. He represents Kildare for 21 years.

This minority Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition government collapses in February 1982 on the budget but returns to power with a working majority in December 1982. Dukes is again appointed to cabinet, becoming Minister for Finance less than two years into his Dáil career.

He faces a difficult task as finance minister. Ireland is heavily in debt while unemployment and emigration are high. Many of Fine Gael’s plans are deferred while the Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition disagrees on how to solve the economic crisis. The challenge of addressing the national finances is made difficult by electoral arithmetic and a lack of support from the opposition Fianna Fáil party led by Charles Haughey. He remains in the Department of Finance until a reshuffle in February 1986 when he is appointed Minister for Justice.

Fine Gael fails to be returned to government at the 1987 Irish general election and loses 19 of its 70 seats, mostly to the new Progressive Democrats. Outgoing Taoiseach and leader Garret FitzGerald steps down and Dukes is elected leader of Fine Gael, becoming Leader of the Opposition.

This is a difficult time for the country. Haughey’s Fianna Fáil runs on promises to increase spending and government services, and attacking the cutbacks favoured by Fine Gael. However, on taking office, the new Taoiseach and his finance minister Ray MacSharry immediately draw up a set of cutbacks including a spate of ward and hospital closures. This presents a political opportunity for the opposition to attack the government.

However, while addressing a meeting of the Tallaght Chamber of Commerce, Dukes announces, in what becomes known as the Tallaght Strategy that: “When the government is moving in the right direction, I will not oppose the central thrust of its policy. If it is going in the right direction, I do not believe that it should be deviated from its course, or tripped up on macro-economic issues.”

This represents a major departure in Irish politics whereby Fine Gael will vote with the minority Fianna Fáil Government if it adopts Fine Gael’s economic policies for revitalising the economy. The consequences of this statement are huge. The Haughey government is able to take severe corrective steps to restructure the economy and lay the foundations for the economic boom of the nineties. However, at a snap election in 1989, Dukes does not receive electoral credit for this approach, and the party only makes minor gains, gaining four seats. The outcome is the first-ever coalition government for Fianna Fáil, whose junior partner is the Progressive Democrats led by former Fianna Fáil TD Desmond O’Malley.

The party’s failure to make significant gains in 1989 leaves some Fine Gael TDs with a desire for a change at the top of the party. Their opportunity comes in the wake of the historic 1990 Irish presidential election. Fine Gael chooses Austin Currie TD as their candidate. He had been a leading member of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) movement in the 1960s and had been a member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) before moving south.

Initially, Fianna Fáil’s Brian Lenihan Snr is the favourite to win. However, after several controversies arise, relating to the brief Fianna Fáil administration of 1982, and Lenihan’s dismissal as Minister for Defence midway through the campaign, the Labour Party’s Mary Robinson emerges victorious. To many in Fine Gael, the humiliation of finishing third is too much to bear and a campaign is launched against Dukes’ leadership. He is subsequently replaced as party leader by John Bruton.

Bruton brings Dukes back to the front bench in September 1992, shortly before the November 1992 Irish general election. In February 1994, Dukes becomes involved in a failed attempt to oust Bruton as leader and subsequently resigns from the front bench. Bruton becomes Taoiseach in December 1994 and Dukes is not appointed to cabinet at the formation of the government.

In December 1996, Dukes returns as Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications following the resignation of Michael Lowry. At the 1997 Irish general election, he tops the poll in the new Kildare South constituency, but Fine Gael loses office. He becomes Chairman of the Irish Council of the European Movement. In this position, he is very involved in advising many of the Eastern European countries who are then applying to join the European Union.

In 2001, Dukes backs Michael Noonan in his successful bid to become leader of Fine Gael.

After 21 years, Dukes loses his Dáil seat at the 2002 Irish general election. This contest sees many high-profile casualties for Fine Gael, including Deputy Leader Jim Mitchell, former deputy leader Nora Owen and others. Many local commentators feel that Dukes’ loss is due to a lack of attention to local issues, as he is highly involved in European projects and has always enjoyed a national profile.

He retires from frontline politics in 2002 and is subsequently appointed Director General of the Institute of International and European Affairs. He remains active within Fine Gael and serves several terms as the party’s vice-president. From 2001 to 2011, he is President of the Alliance française in Dublin, and in June 2004, the French Government appoints him an Officer of the Legion of Honour. In April 2004, he is awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

In December 2008, Dukes is appointed by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan Jnr as a public interest director on the board of Anglo Irish Bank. The bank is subsequently nationalised, and he serves on the board until the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) is liquidated in 2013.

From 2011 to 2013, Dukes serves as chairman of the Board of Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind. In 2011, he founds the think tank Asia Matters, which inks an agreement with the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in May 2019.

Dukes has lived in Kildare since first being elected to represent the Kildare constituency in 1981. His wife Fionnuala (née Corcoran) is a former local politician and serves as a member of Kildare County Council from 1999 until her retirement in 2009. She serves as Cathaoirleach of the council from 2006 to 2007, becoming only the second woman to hold the position in the body’s one-hundred-year history. They have two daughters.


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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.