Seán Milroy

Seán Milroy
Milroy, c. 1920s
Senator
In office
27 April 1938 – 7 September 1938
ConstituencyLabour Panel
Senator
In office
12 December 1928 – 29 May 1936
Teachta Dála
In office
May 1921 – 30 October 1924
ConstituencyCavan
Member of Parliament for the House of Commons of Northern Ireland
In office
May 1921 – March 1925
ConstituencyFermanagh and Tyrone
Personal details
BornJohn Ignatius Milroy
1877
Cumberland, England
Died30 November 1946(1946-11-30) (aged 68–69)
Dublin, Ireland
Party
Military service
Branch/serviceIrish Republican Army
UnitIrish Volunteers
Battles/warsEaster Rising

Seán Milroy (1877 – 30 November 1946) was an Irish revolutionary and politician, who took part in the 1916 Easter Rising and served as a TD from 1921 to 1924 and afterwards in the Seanad of the Irish Free State.[1]

Biography

Milroy was born in Maryport, Cumberland, England to Scottish parents. He moved to Cork as a young adult.[2] He was a journalist by profession.

He was a close friend of Arthur Griffith and an early member of Sinn Féin, serving on its national executive from 1909 to 1912.[1] He joined the Irish Volunteers, and in 1915 he was arrested and imprisoned for three months for a speech in which he urged Irishmen not to fight in World War I.[3] He fought in the Easter Rising in 1916, and was later imprisoned in England.[1] On 3 February 1919 he escaped from Lincoln Jail in England along with Seán McGarry and Éamon de Valera.[4]

On 3 April 1918, Milroy contested a by-election for Sinn Féin in East Tyrone unsuccessfully.[5] At the 1918 general election he stood in North East Tyrone, but an electoral pact brokered by Cardinal Michael Logue allocated the seat to the Irish Parliamentary Party and it was not contested by Sinn Féin. He remained on the ballot, receiving only 56 votes.[6] He was elected a Sinn Féin TD at the 1921 elections for both Cavan and for Fermanagh and Tyrone.[7] He voted in favour of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. He supported the executions in December 1922 of Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey who were executed without trial or court martial, after serving five months in prison, the day after the assassination of a pro-treaty TD.[8]

He became a member of Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923 but left the party in March 1924 to join the National Group in opposition to the Government's actions to the Army Mutiny. He resigned from his seat on 30 October 1924 along with seven other TDs.[9] He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1925 by-election in Dublin North. He unsuccessfully contested the June 1927 general election in Cavan.[10]

In later years, he reconciled with his former colleagues and was elected to Seanad Éireann, serving for Cumann na nGaedheal (and later for Fine Gael from 1933) from 1928 until the Free State Seanad was abolished in 1936. He was re-elected to the new 2nd Seanad in 1938 on the Labour Panel, but failed to be re-elected to the 3rd Seanad following the 1938 general election.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Coleman, Marie (October 2009). "Milroy, John Ignatius ('Seán')". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  2. ↑ Sean Milroy Kilmainham Gaol Autographbooks
  3. ↑ Kelly, M. J. (2006). The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism, 1882-1916. Boydell & Brewer. p. 249. ISBN 1843832046. Retrieved 3 April 2016.
  4. ↑ Macardle, Dorothy (1965). The Irish Republic. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. p. 283.
  5. ↑ Macardle 1965, p. 247.
  6. ↑ Dublin Evening Telegraph. 4 December 1918.
  7. ↑ "Seán Milroy". Oireachtas Members Database. Retrieved 11 April 2009.
  8. ↑ "Debate on Mountjoy Executions". Dáil Debates. 2 (3). Houses of the Oireachtas. 8 December 1922.
  9. ↑ "Resignation of Deputies". Dáil Debates. 9 (6). Houses of the Oireachtas. 30 October 1924. Archived from the original on 22 July 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2026.
  10. ↑ "Seán Milroy". ElectionsIreland.org. Retrieved 11 April 2009.

Sources

  • Andrews, Todd (1979). Dublin Made Me.
  • Coogan, Tim Pat (1995). De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow.
  • Gaughan, J. Anthony, ed. (1996). Memoirs of Senator Joseph Connolly: A Founder of Modern Ireland.
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