Seán Milroy

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.

Biography Milroy was born in Maryport, Cumberland, England to Scottish parents. He moved to Cork as a young adult. 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. He fought in the Easter Rising in 1916, and was later imprisoned in England.

On 3 April 1918, Milroy contested a by-election for Sinn Féin in East Tyrone unsuccessfully. At the 1918 general election he stood in North East Tyrone, 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. He was elected a Sinn Féin TD at the 1921 elections for both Cavan and for Fermanagh and Tyrone. He voted in favour of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922. He supported the executions in December 1922 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.

He became a member of Cumann na nGaedheal in 1923 but left the party in March 1924 to join the National Group in opposition to the Government's actions to the Army Mutiny. He resigned from his seat on 30 October 1924 along with seven other TDs. He was an unsuccessful candidate in the 1925 by-election in Dublin North. He unsuccessfully contested the June 1927 general election in Cavan.

In later years, he reconciled with his former colleagues and was elected to Seanad Éireann, serving for Cumann na nGaedheal (and later for Fine Gael from 1933) from 1928 until the Free State Seanad was abolished in 1936. He was re-elected to the new 2nd Seanad in 1938 on the Labour Panel, but failed to be re-elected to the 3rd Seanad following the 1938 general election.