Socialist Workers Party (Ireland) - Personalities and Elected Representatives

Personalities and Elected Representatives

In the 2011 General Election, SWP member and Irish Anti-War Movement chair Richard Boyd Barrett was elected to the Dail Eireann on behalf of the People Before Profit Alliance as part of the United Left Alliance. One of its best known members is Eamonn McCann, a journalist from Derry, who was involved in the Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s. He was present at both the Battle of the Bogside in August 1969 and Bloody Sunday in January 1972, and has campaigned for the families of the fourteen shot dead by the British Paratroop regiment. McCann writes articles for media such as the Belfast Telegraph and Hot Press, and attracted 9,127 votes (1.6%) for the Socialist Environmental Alliance in the Northern Ireland constituency in the European Parliament elections of 2004.

Kieran Allen is a sociologist in UCD, and is one of the party's main theorists, writing books on The Politics of James Connolly, the Celtic Tiger and Max Weber - Sociologist of Empire. Brid Smith, a Ballyfermot party representative, was jailed in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison after campaigning against rubbish-bin charges in Dublin. The late John de Courcy Ireland, long-time left-wing veteran and nautical historian was also an active and dedicated member. Rory Hearne, who left the party in 2008, was President of the Trinity College Student Union and Deputy President of the Union of Students in Ireland. Other important figures are Kevin Wingfield and Conor Kostick.