Seán MacManus (politician)

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

Seán MacManus
MacManus in 2011
Sligo County Councillor
In office
1999–2017
Personal details
Born1950
Blacklion, County Cavan
NationalityIrish
Political partySinn Féin

Background

MacManus was born in 1950 near Blacklion, a village in the north-west of County Cavan in 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, serving from 1984 until 1990. After the IRA ceasefire in 1994, MacManus was part of the first formal and publicly acknowledged 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 (GFA).

First elected to Sligo Corporation (later called Sligo Borough Council) in 1994, he remained until the council'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 was also a candidate for the Sligo–Leitrim (Dáil constituency)|Sligo–Leitrim constituency]] at several general elections. He stepped down from elected politics in February 2017 and was replaced by his son, Chris MacManus.

In 2000, MacManus became the Mayor of Sligo Town, 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 (1999–2014) and Sligo County Council (2017–2020); Chris has been an MEP since March 2020. His eldest son, Joseph MacManus, was an IRA volunteer who was killed in a firefight against an off-duty UDR soldier in Belleek, County Fermanagh, in February 1992.[1][4][5]

References
  1. "Sean MacManus". Archived from the original on 19 November 2007. Retrieved 9 December 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link). 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 27 January 2007. Retrieved 23 March 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link).
  3. "Sinn Féin mayor for Sligo". Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 9 December 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) 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 3 March 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


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