Joseph Sweeney (Irish politician)

For other people named Joseph Sweeney, see Joseph Sweeney (disambiguation).

Joseph Aloysius Sweeney (13 June 1897 – 25 November 1980) was an Irish politician and military commander.

As the Sinn Féin candidate, Sweeney was elected to the British House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for West Donegal at the 1918 general election, defeating the sitting nationalist Hugh Law. He did not attend (aged 21, he would have been the youngest MP), and instead participated in the First Dáil. He is the second youngest ever TD.

In 1921 he was one of six Sinn Féin candidates elected unopposed to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland for Donegal. Again he did not attend and instead participated in the Second Dáil. In 1922 he was re-elected as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidate for Donegal and participated in the Third Dáil.

Sweeney was born in Burtonport, a town in The Rosses, a district in the north-west of County Donegal. He received his secondary education at St. Enda's School in Rathfarnham, where Patrick Pearse was Headmaster. He served as a Major-General in the National Army during the Irish Civil War in the early 1920s. Having spent most of his life in Dublin, he died in 1980 aged 83.

References

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Hugh Law	Member of Parliament for Donegal West 1918–1922	Succeeded by Constituency abolished
Preceded by Edward Stanley	Baby of the House 1918–1919	Succeeded by Esmond Harmsworth
Oireachtas
New constituency	Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Donegal West 1918–1921	Succeeded by Constituency abolished
New constituency	Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for Donegal 1921–1923	Succeeded by Patrick McFadden