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]
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 Tyrone East unsuccessfully.[5] At the 1918 United Kingdom general election he stood in Tyrone North-East, 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 Teachta Dála (TD) at the 1921 elections for both the Cavan constituency and for the Fermanagh and Tyrone constituency.[7] He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He supported the executions 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][non-primary source needed]
He became a member of Cumann na nGaedheal but left the party and resigned from his seat on 30 October 1924 along with seven other TDs in opposition to the Government's actions to the Army Mutiny. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1925 by-election in Dublin North. He unsuccessfully contested the June 1927 general election.[9]
In later years, he reconciled with his former colleagues and was elected to Seanad Éireann, serving for both Cumann na nGaedheal and later for Fine Gael from 1928 until the Free State Seanad was abolished in 1936. He was re-elected to the new 2nd Seanad in 1938, but failed to be re-elected to the 3rd Seanad following the 1938 general election.
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