Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin

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Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
Parliamentary Leader of Sinn Féin in Dáil Éireann
Constituency	Cavan Monaghan
Born	September 18, 1953 (age 53)
Political party	Sinn Féin

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (IPA: [ˈk^ɰiːvʲiːnʲ oː ˈk^ɰiːlɑːnʲ]; born September 18, 1953) is a Sinn Féin politician from Ireland. He has been a TD for Cavan Monaghan since 1997 and is currently the Parliamentary Leader of Sinn Féin in Dáil Éireann.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was born in Monaghan in 1953. He was a bank official with the Bank of Ireland in the 1970s, and served in a number of towns, including Ballinasloe. He became a senior bank official but then left the bank to concentrate on politics. He has been active in republican circles for years. He was Director of Elections in the Anti H-Block campaign of 1981 when Kieran Doherty was elected TD for the Cavan-Monaghan constituency. Between 1982 and 1985 he was general manager of the republican newspaper An Phoblacht. Ó Caoláin's first political success came in 1985 when he was elected to Monaghan County Council as a Sinn Féin councillor. In 1989, loyalist paramilitaries attempted to kill him and another Sinn Féin councillor.

Ó Caoláin represented Sinn Féin at the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation in Dublin in the mid-1990s and was also a member of the Sinn Féin negotiations team during the talks which led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. In the 1997 general election he was elected to Dáil Éireann for the Cavan Monaghan constituency, making him the first Sinn Féin TD elected since 1957 and the first Sinn Féin TD to take his seat at Dáil Éireann in Leinster House. He was subsequently re-elected in 2002. At the last general election he was joined by four other Sinn Féin deputies. Ó Caoláin is currently Sinn Féin's Parliamentary Group Leader in the Dáil and is "spokesperson on the peace process and the Six Counties"^[1] (Northern Ireland), as well as on finance and health and children.

[edit] Footnote

↑  Quote from the Sinn Féin website. Many Irish republicans use the term "Six Counties" to refer to Northern Ireland. See Northern Ireland naming dispute.

Oireachtas
Preceded by Jimmy Leonard (Fianna Fáil)	Teachta Dála for Cavan-Monaghan 1997–	Succeeded by Incumbent
Preceded by Newly created position	Parliamentary Leader of Sinn Féin in Dáil Éireann 1997–