Political Career
In 1879 he was prominent enough in Irish nationalist circles to be a committee member and propose the election of Charles Stewart Parnell as president of the Irish Land League.
In 1880 he visited Minnesota and became involved with Bishop Ireland's scheme to settle poor Irish people in the State, recently vacated by the Eastern Dakota. On 27 December 1881 The Times published an article from 'a correspondent' (who may have been Sweetman himself) about 'An Irish Colony. Currie, Murray County, Minnesota'. The article explained that John Sweetman was the Managing Director of the Irish-American Colonization Company, "the principal organizer and practical director of the emigration...in order to make the most profitable selection of lands Mr Sweetman travelled through and carefully examined the States of Dakota and Minnesota, and also Manitoba, and finally purchased some 20,000 acres (80 km²) of prairie land situated in Murray County ...".
Unfortunately the colonisation project was not a complete success, but it did help a number of people to obtain a better life in America.
The Sweetman brewery in Dublin was purchased by the Guinness family in 1891.
He was a major investor in the National Press newspaper. The Times of 3 June 1892 mentioned that "Mr John Sweetman of County Meath, who had contributed £1,000 as a donation to the fund for starting the National Press, had been unanimously selected for the Eastern Division". This was at a convention to select Nationalist candidates for the two Parliamentary constituencies in County Wicklow.
He was elected at the 1892 general election as MP for East Wicklow as a member of the Anti-Parnellite faction of the Irish Parliamentary Party. He became a Parnellite in 1895 and resigned the seat on 8 April 1895 by being appointed the Steward of the Manor of Northstead. At the resulting by-election 26 April 1895, he stood as a Parnellite candidate but was defeated in a closely fought three-way contest. At the general election in July 1895 he stood in North Meath, where he narrowly failed to unseat the sitting anti-Parnellite MP James Gibney.
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