Early Life
Mitchell began his political involvement when he supported Seán MacBride, leader of the radical republican Clann na Poblachta at the 1957 general election. He joined Fine Gael in 1967, becoming that party's unsuccessful candidate in a by-election in 1970. He sought a party nomination to run at the 1973 general election. However he agreed not to contest the seat to allow Declan Costello, a senior figure in his party and son of former Taoiseach John A. Costello, to be elected. Costello went on to serve as Attorney General of Ireland in the 1973–1977 National Coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party.
Mitchell was elected to Dublin Corporation in 1974. In 1976, aged 29, he became the youngest ever Lord Mayor of Dublin. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Dáil Éireann at the 1973 general election in Dublin South–West and lost again in the 1976 by-election in the same constituency, to Labour Party's Brendan Halligan.
Outside politics he worked for Guinness at the St. James's Gate Brewery.
Read more about this topic: Jim Mitchell (politician)
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)