Mannix Flynn is an Irish Independent politician who has served as a DublinCity Councillor since May 2009. Aside from his work on the Dublin City Council, he is also a well known author and playwright, having written the novel Nothing To Say in 1983 and the play James X in 2002.
His novels are published in German, Italian, Polish, and are currently being translated into Chinese. He founded his arts company, Farcry Productions, in 2004, which produces visual art, performance and installation work around taboo issues such as child sexual abuse, violence, and addiction. In 2004, James X performed by Flynn won the Irish Times Theatre Award. An earlier version of this play titled ' Talking to the Wall' had previously won the Edinburgh Fringe award. He appeared in the films Cal and When the Sky Falls, Excalibur and worked as an actor in Scotland, London, Austria, and Dublin for 20 years.
Politician
Flynn was first elected to Dublin City Council in the 2009 local elections as an Independent candidate representing the South-East Inner Cityelectoral area. He was re-elected to the revised Pembroke-South Dock electoral area in the 2014 local elections. He tabled a motion to move the Temple Bar Cultural Trust under the direct control of Dublin City Council. The trust was subsequently found to be in breach of corporate governance and accountability in a number of public reports. He has expressed critical views of the way public money was spent as part of a Grafton Street regeneration project in Dublin. He supports tougher regulation around the amplification of busking on public streets, which led to his office being vandalised in February 2015. In 2015, he resigned from the Dublin City Council Arts SPC over what he perceived as a lack of cohesive overall policy, strategy, and vision. In 2016, he protested against the Artane Band, due to its association with the Artane Industrial School. The band responded saying it has had no association with the former industrial school. Flynn's peaceful protest, which included him protesting on a window sill in his Dublin City Council office, was criticised by some as "attention seeking" and a "publicity stunt full stop". He contested both the 2011, 2016 and 2020 general elections to Dáil Éireann unsuccessfully.
A documentary about the effects on Flynn and his family of clerical abuse was released in 2019, receiving special mention for the Dublin Human Rights Film Award at the Dublin International Film Festival.
