Seán MacManus (politician)

Seán MacManus
Cllr
MacManus in 2011
Sligo County Councillor
Assumed office
1999
Constituency Sligo-Strandhill
Personal details
Born 1950
Blacklion, County Cavan
Nationality Irish
Political party Sinn Féin

Seán MacManus is an Irish Sinn Féin politician, and was the national chairperson of the party from 1984 to 1990.[1]

Background

MacManus was born in 1950 near Blacklion, County Cavan, Ireland and moved to London in the 1960s to find work. There he met and married Helen McGovern, a native of Glenfarne, County Leitrim. In 1976, he returned to Ireland and settled in the Maugheraboy area of Sligo town, County Sligo so that their family of two boys could be educated in Ireland.[2]

Still based in Maugheraboy, MacManus has been involved in Irish Republican politics since the early 1970s and was secretary of the County Sligo Anti-H-Block Committee which campaigned in support of the republican prisoners hunger strikes of 1980/81. He became a member of the Sinn Féin Ard Comhairle (National Executive) in 1982 and remained there for over twenty years. MacManus was elected as the first Sinn Féin National Chairperson from 1984 until 1990. After the IRA ceasefire in 1994 MacManus was part of the first Sinn Féin delegation to meet with the British government in over seventy years. He was also involved in the protracted negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement.

First elected to Sligo Corporation (now Sligo Borough Council) in 1994 he has remained until it's abolition in May 2014. He was also elected to Sligo County Council in 1999 and was re-elected in 2004, 2009 and 2014. He stepped down from elected politics in February 2017 been replaced by Chris MacManus.

In 2000, MacManus became Mayor of Sligo, the first Sinn Féin Mayor in the Republic of Ireland since the beginning of The Troubles in 1969. He was also elected Mayor in 2003.[3]

Republican family

MacManus has two sons. Chris MacManus, the youngest, was also an elected member of Sligo Borough Council from 1999-2014 as well as having served several years on Sinn Féin's National Executive. He was nearly elected a TD in the General Election of 2016. His eldest son, Joseph MacManus, was an IRA volunteer who was killed in a firefight against a UDR squad in Belleek, County Fermanagh in February 1992.[1][4][5]

References

  1. 1 2 "Sean MacManus". Archived from the original on November 19, 2007. Retrieved 2006-12-09. . Sinn Féin.
  2. ↑ "Sorrowful Homecoming for a Brave Young Irishman" and “Volunteer Joseph MacManus”, The Irish People, 22 February 1992. Cited by Bob Nowlan, "Reflections on the Deportation of Joe Doherty and the Irish Republican Struggle Today". Archived from the original on January 27, 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-23. .
  3. ↑ "Sinn Féin mayor for Sligo". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved 2006-12-09. Sligo Weekender, 24 June 2003.
  4. ↑ Rebel Hearts - Journey's within the IRA's soul, Kevin Toolis, 1995. PB) ISBN 0-312-15632-4 p.334
  5. ↑ Sligo Sinn Féin man’s key role in Peace Process Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine.

Further reading

  • Brian Feeney, Sinn Féin: A Hundred Turbulent Years (2003) HB: ISBN 0-299-18670-9 PB ISBN 0-299-18674-1
Party political offices
Preceded by
New position		 Chairperson of Sinn Féin
1984–1990		 Succeeded by
Tom Hartley


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