Alex Maskey

Alex Maskey
MLA
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Belfast West
Assumed office
3 November 2014
Preceded by Sue Ramsey
In office
25 June 1998 – 26 November 2003
Preceded by New Creation
Succeeded by Fra McCann
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for Belfast South
In office
26 November 2003 – 22 October 2014
Preceded by Monica McWilliams
Succeeded by Máirtín Ó Muilleoir
47th Lord Mayor of Belfast
In office
2002–2003
Preceded by Jim Rodgers
Succeeded by Martin Morgan
Personal details
Born (1952-01-08) 8 January 1952
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Nationality Irish
Political party Sinn Féin
Website Sinn Féin profile

Alex Maskey (born 8 January 1952) is an Irish politician who was the first member of Sinn Féin to serve as Belfast's Lord Mayor.[1] He was Sinn Féin's longest sitting councillor and is currently an MLA for West Belfast as well as being a former councillor for the Laganbank area of Belfast.[2]

Early life

Maskey was educated at St. Malachy's College and at the Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education and then worked in Belfast docks as a labourer and barman.[1][3] He was a successful amateur boxer, having only lost 4 out of 75 fights.[3]

When the Troubles broke out in 1969 he became involved with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and was interned twice in the 1970s.[3]

Politics

Maskey stood unsuccessfully in West Belfast in the 1982 Assembly Election.[4] In 1983, as part of the armalite and ballot box strategy, Maskey won a by-election for a seat on Belfast City Council from the Upper Falls area and became the first member of Sinn Féin to be elected to Belfast City Council since the beginning of The Troubles and only the second to be elected in Northern Ireland. Maskey emerged as a key ally of Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams' approach to the strategy.[1] In 1987 he survived being shot at close range by loyalist paramilitaries.[3]

In 1996 Maskey was elected to the Northern Ireland Peace Forum for the Belfast West constituency but did not attend the Forum in accordance with Sinn Féin's policy of abstentionism. Two years later he was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, which on this occasion Sinn Féin did not boycott.[5]

Maskey's growing political profile led him to contest the Belfast South constituency in the 2001 general election as part of Sinn Féin's strategy of building up their vote in one of their weaker constituencies.[6] In the local elections held on the same day he switched to the Laganbank area of South Belfast and won a seat there.[7]

In 2002 Maskey became the first ever republican to serve as Lord Mayor of Belfast.[3] His first duty in office was to open the annual Presbyterian General Assembly despite being a non-Presbyterian.[8] Maskey then gained praise when as part of his duties as Lord Mayor in July 2002 he laid a wreath in memorial of British soldiers who died in the First World War. However he declined to attend the main memorial ceremony, stating that it was "the military commemoration of the Battle of the Somme".[9] In his office he flew the British Union Jack and the Irish tricolour side by side.[10]

In the 2003 Assembly election Maskey stood in South Belfast again and won Sinn Féin's first seat there with a boost in the vote share. He also contested the seat in the 2005 general election with the vote share down on the Assembly elections, losing to the Social Democratic and Labour Party candidate, Alasdair McDonnell.[6]

On Christmas Day, 2005, Maskey suffered a heart attack while with his family. Several weeks later he appeared on BBC Radio Ulster to talk about his health.[11]

In 2006 he participated in the negotiations resulting in the Basque nationalist organisation ETA truce announced on 22 March.[12]

On 23 April 2007 he was announced as one of three Sinn Féin members who would sit on the re-vamped Northern Ireland Policing Board.

Maskey resigned from Belfast City Council in October 2010, as part of Sinn Féin's policy of abolishing double jobbing.[13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Biographies of Prominent People". Conflict Archive on the Internet. Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  2. ↑ "Alex Maskey". Belfast City Council. Archived from the original on 23 October 2007. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "From barman to Belfast's first citizen". BBC News. 5 June 2002. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  4. ↑ Nicholas Whyte (25 March 2003). "Northern Ireland Assembly Elections 1982". ARK. Archived from the original on 13 February 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  5. ↑ Nicholas Whyte (3 June 1998). "West Belfast". ARK. Archived from the original on 4 April 2007. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
  6. 1 2 Nicholas Whyte (3 June 1998). "South Belfast". ARK. Archived from the original on 4 April 2007. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
  7. ↑ "Alex Maskey". Sinn Féin. Archived from the original on 4 November 2005. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  8. ↑ "Presbyterians welcome lord mayor". BBC News. 10 June 2002. Retrieved 24 February 2007.
  9. ↑ "Maskey marks Somme with wreath". BBC News. 1 July 2002. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  10. ↑ "Tricolour raised in City Hall". BBC. 4 September 2002. Retrieved 27 July 2012.
  11. ↑ "Ex Belfast mayor discharged after heart attack". TCM Archives. 30 December 2005. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  12. ↑ "Sinn Féin 'involved in Eta move'". BBC News. 24 March 2006. Retrieved 23 February 2007.
  13. ↑ Alex Maskey Belfast’s first republican mayor quits council seat, Belfast Telegraph, 13 October 2010
Civic offices
Preceded by
Jim Rodgers		 Lord Mayor of Belfast
2002–03 		Succeeded by
Martin Morgan
Northern Ireland Forum
New forum Member for West Belfast
1996–1998 		Forum dissolved
Northern Ireland Assembly
New assembly MLA for Belfast West
1998–2003 		Succeeded by
Fra McCann
Preceded by
Monica McWilliams		 MLA for Belfast South
2003–2014 		Succeeded by
Máirtín Ó Muilleoir
Preceded by
Sue Ramsey		 MLA for Belfast West
2014-present 		Incumbent
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