Mary MacSwiney

Mary MacSwiney
Vice President of Sinn Féin
In office 1927–1933
Leader	John J. O'Kelly Brian O'Higgins
Preceded by	Kathleen Lynn
Succeeded by	Margaret Buckley
Teachta Dála
In office May 1921 – June 1927
Constituency	Cork Borough
Personal details
Born	(1872-03-27)27 March 1872 London, England
Died	8 March 1942(1942-03-08) (aged 69) County Cork, Ireland
Occupation	Politician Teacher Activist

Mary MacSwiney (pronounced 'MacSweeney'; Irish: Máire Nic Shuibhne; 27 March 1872 – 8 March 1942) was an Irish republican activist and politician, as well as a teacher.^[1] MacSwiney was thrust into both the national and international spotlight in 1920 when her brother Terence MacSwiney, then the Lord Mayor of Cork, went on hunger strike in protest of British policy in Ireland. Mary, alongside her sister-in-law Muriel MacSwiney kept daily vigil over Terence and effectively became spokespeople for the campaign. Terence MacSwiney would ultimately die in October 1920, and from then on Mary MacSwiney acted as an unofficial custodian of his legacy, becoming a dogged and zealous advocate of Irish Republicanism. Following a high-profile seven-month tour of the United States in 1921 in which she and Muriel raised the profile of the Irish independence movement, Mary was elected to Dáil Éireann amidst the ongoing Irish War of Independence. During debates of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, a proposed peace deal between the British and the Irish, MacSwiney was amongst the most outspoken advocates against it. During the ensuing Irish Civil War, MacSwiney supported the Anti-Treaty IRA and was imprisoned for it, resulting in her partaking in two hunger strikes herself.

Following the Sinn Féin/Fianna Fáil split in 1926, she became deputy leader of Sinn Féin in 1927.^[2] As Sinn Féin and hardline republicans became increasingly sidelined politically in the decade following the split, MacSwiney reacted by endorsing violence carried out by the IRA. Towards the end of her life, she formally endorsed the World War II era leadership of the IRA under Seán Russell, who would go on to carry out the "S-Plan", a bombing campaign of Northern Ireland and England designed to weaken the UK in the face of Germany.