Gerard Mannix Flynn, sometimes written only as Mannix Flynn, is an Irish writer, playwright, actor and politician. He was born in Dublin in May 1957.[1][2] He was sent to St Joseph's Industrial School in Letterfrack aged eleven for eighteen months.[3][4] He was subjected to sexual and physical abuse there.[3] Later he spent time in the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum.[3][4] He also spent time in Marlborough House Detention Centre and St Patrick's Institution, Mountjoy for committing arson .[5]
His autobiographical novel Nothing to say was published in 1983.[4]
In 2002 his semi-autobiographical play James X about a man suing the government and coming to terms with abuse he suffered in state institutions was produced in the Temple Bar Music Centre.[5]
He is a member of Aosdána.[4] He is father to a son and a daughter.
He appeared in the films Cal and When the Sky Falls.
He was a candidate in the June 2009 local elections in Dublin,[4] and was elected as an independent councillor to Dublin City Council.
He unsuccessfully contested the 2011 General Election in the Dublin South East constituency.
Mannix Flynn criticised the Commission report for not investigating the role of the state and pointed out that none of the testimony to the Commission can be used for prosecutions.[6] He criticised the terms "survivor" and "victim" as well as the retelling of individual stories of what happened as "sentimentalism".[6] He says this assuages middle-class guilt when society at large remained indifferent to the violence of the institutions at the time they were run.[6]