Máirtín Ó Muilleoir

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir (born 31 December 1959 ) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician, author, publisher, and businessman, who served as the 70th Lord Mayor of Belfast from 2013 to 2014.

Ó Muilleoir's siblings include writer, blogger, and Huffington Post columnist Adrian Millar, and journalist and editor Gerry Millar/Gearóid Ó Muilleoir of The Belfast Telegraph.

Early life and education Ó Muilleoir was educated at St Mary's Christian Brothers' Grammar School, Belfast, and at Queen's University Belfast.

Career

Business career In 1997, Ó Muilleoir became part-owner of the Andersonstown News, which subsequently purchased the New York-based Irish Echo.

Political career Ó Muilleoir entered politics in 1985, when he stood as a Sinn Féin candidate for the Upper Falls area and narrowly missed out on being elected.

When Pip Glendinning of the Alliance Party resigned her seat two years later due to the birth of Glendinning's daughter, Ó Muilleoir won the resulting by-election in October 1987. During his time on the council, he initiated a number of legal actions over what he claimed was discrimination by the unionist-dominated council,

He re-entered politics in 2011, when he was elected as a Belfast City Councillor for Balmoral, South Belfast, gaining the seat previously held by Jim Kirkpatrick of the Democratic Unionist Party, and was elected Lord Mayor in 2013, serving a one-year term.

In 2014, he was co-opted as an MLA into the Northern Ireland Assembly. He stood in Belfast South in the 2015 United Kingdom general election, losing to the Social Democratic and Labour Party incumbent, Alasdair McDonnell. On 12 May 2016, he was appointed Minister of Finance in the Northern Ireland Executive. He resigned as an MLA in December 2019, and Deirdre Hargey was co-opted in his place.