Members of the First Dáil - Seán MacEntee

Sean Francis MacEntee (Listed as J. McEntee)

Seán MacEntee (Irish: Seán Mac an tSaoi; 22 August 1889 – 10 January 1984) was a senior Irish politician. In a career that spanned over forty years as a Fianna Fáil Teachta Dála, MacEntee was one of the most important figures in post-independence Ireland. He served in the governments of Éamon de Valera and Seán Lemass in a range of ministerial positions, including Finance, Industry & Commerce and Health. He was a member of every Fianna Fail cabinet from 1932 to April 1965. He introduced a protectionist policy that is now considered a failure. He served as Tánaiste of Ireland from 1959 to 1965. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving member of the First Dáil.

Seán MacEntee was born in College Square, Belfast in 1889. He was educated at St Mary's Christian Brothers School, St. Malachy's College and the Belfast Municipal College of Technology where he qualified as an electrical engineer. His early political involvement was with the Irish Socialist Republican Party in Belfast city. Following his education MacEntee worked as an engineer in Dundalk, County Louth, and was involved in the establishment of a local corps of the Irish Volunteers in the town. He mobilised in Dundalk and fought in the General Post Office Garrison in the Easter Rising in 1916. He was sentenced to death for his part in the rising. This sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. MacEntee was released in the general amnesty in 1917, and was later elected a member of the National Executives of both Sinn Féin and the Irish Volunteers in October 1917. MacEntee was later elected Sinn Féin Member of Parliament (MP) for Monaghan South (UK Parliament constituency) in the 1918 general election.

An attempt to develop his career as a consulting engineer in Belfast was interrupted by the War of Independence in 1919. MacEntee served as Vice-Commandant of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army until April 1921 when he was transferred to Dublin to direct a special anti-partition campaign in connection with the May general election.

It was on the partition of Ireland issue that MacEntee voted against the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. During the subsequent Civil War, MacEntee commanded the IRA unit in Marlboro Street Post Office in Dublin. He later fought with Cathal Brugha in the Hamman Hotel, and was subsequently interned in Kilmainham and Gormanstown until December 1923.

After his release MacEntee devoted himself more fully to his engineering practice, although he did contest unsuccessfully the county Dublin by-election of 1924. He became a founder-member of Fianna Fáil in 1926 and was elected Teachta Dála for County Dublin in the June 1927 general election.

MacEntee founded the Association of Patent Agents in 1929, having gained his interest in Patents when he worked as an assistant engineer in Dundalk Urban District Council. On Mr. MacEntee’s appointment as Minister for Finance in 1932, his colleague, Francis Litton who was acting as Secretary of the Association, circulated the members with a notice to the effect that the Association was “suspended” until such time as Mr. MacEntee could return as he now had to devote his energies to the affairs of the State. However, the other members decided to carry on. MacEntee must have valued his status as a Patent Agent since he maintained his name on the Register for over 30 years while he held Ministerial rank in the Irish Government, although he is not thought to have taken any active part in the patent business, which was carried on by his partner.

Seán MacEntee died in Dublin on 10 January 1984, at the age of 94. He had married a fiercely nationalistic woman from Tipperary, Margaret Browne, and their daughter is the Irish poet Máire Mhac an tSaoi. She was married to the politician turned iconoclast Conor Cruise O'Brien until his death.