Seamus McDonagh

A steel-fixer by trade, Séamus spent his life working and paying tax before becoming unemployed when the construction sector collapsed in 2007. A Meath native through and through, Séamus grew up in Wilkinstown before emigrating in the 1960s to find work in England and Belgium and returned to Ireland in the 1980s to raise his family. One of a large family, his life has been typical of many people of this current generation, and the generations before them, who were forced into emigration for want of work.

Séamus has lived in Kells for the last 7 years and has been active locally in organising the Jim Connell Society which holds a festival in Kells and Crossakiel on the May holiday weekend in celebration of the man who wrote the socialist anthem ‘The Red Flag’.

A life long socialist, Séamus has been a member of the Workers’ Party since the 1970s. He lived in Blanchardstown for a period in the 1980s and was involved in community projects to rehabilitate drug users, and was also closely involved in the first water tax campaign and the later bin charges campaign.

Séamus is currently involved in Right2Water which has been successful in building a strong opposition to these water charges  in county Meath.

If elected to the Dáil, Séamus will represent the ordinary people of Meath and Ireland, whether employed or unemployed, young middle-aged or elderly, workers or farmers. He will call for political decisions to be made in the interests of the ordinary people rather than the interests of the golden circle, big business, and the financial markets.

Séamus believes in creating a society of equals and will work to separate church and state in all spheres including health and education. He will work to promote civil rights for all, especially for those who have been discriminated against by church or state in the past, including women, travellers, immigrants, and LGBTs. Séamus is unambiguously pro-choice.