David Kent (politician)

David Rice Kent (also known as David Ceannt; died November 1930) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician.

In May 1916 Kent and three of his brothers were involved in a gunfight with members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) during an arrest operation following the Easter Rising, and was badly wounded. His brother Thomas Kent was convicted of armed rebellion and executed by firing squad, the only one of the Rising's leaders to be shot outside Dublin. David Kent was also sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted, and he was released within a year.

He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin MP for the Cork East constituency at the 1918 general election.^[1] 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, though Kent did not attend.^[2] He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork East and North East constituency at the 1921 elections. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it.

He was re-elected for the same constituency at the 1922 general election, this time as an anti-Treaty Sinn Féin TD, and he did not sit in the Dáil from this time onwards. He was elected as a Republican TD for Cork East constituency at the 1923 general election. He was elected as one of five Sinn Féin TDs at the June 1927 general election. He did not contest the September 1927 general election.^[3]

His brother William Kent was also a TD in the 1920s and 1930s.

See also

• Families in the Oireachtas

References