Thomas Kelly (Irish politician)

For other persons named Thomas Kelly, see Thomas Kelly (disambiguation).

Thomas (Tom) Kelly (13 September 1868 – 20 April 1942) was an Irish Sinn Féin and later Fianna Fáil politician. He was a book and picture dealer before entering politics. He was a founder member of Sinn Féin and was elected to Dublin City Council. Kelly was arrested after the 1916 Easter Rising and sent to prison in England, and after becoming seriously ill, he was released back to Dublin. He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Dublin St Stephens's Green constituency in the 1918 general election. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled at the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann.^[1]

He was re-elected unopposed in the 1921 elections for the Dublin South constituency. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and but was too ill to attend the Dáil vote. He served as substitute Minister for Labour from 19 March 1919 to end of October 1919. He was again re-elected in the 1922 general election as a member of Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin but did not take his seat in the Dáil. He did not join Cumann na nGaedhael along with other pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TDs in 1923, nor did he contest the 1923 general election. In 1930 he joined Fianna Fáil and was elected as a Fianna Fáil TD in the 1933 general election for Dublin South. He remained a TD and councillor until his death in 1942.