Paul Galligan
Paul Galligan was an Irish Sinn Féin politician who would experience over five years in prison as a result of his republican activities during the 1916 Rising in Enniscorthy and the War of Independence in County Cavan.
Born in Carrigallen, County Leitrim, Galligan attended school at St. Patrick's in Cavan. As a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers, during the Easter Rising Galligan cycled from Dublin to Wexford carrying James Connolly's battle orders to ensure that the volunteers in the area rose to support those in Dublin. When the volunteers disbanded he cycled back to Cavan but was arrested at the family home.
He was elected unopposed as the Sinn Féin MP for Cavan West at the 1918 general election. The following month, in January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann, though Galligan did not attend as he was in prison. He was arrested again in September 1920 and re-elected as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for the Cavan constituency at the 1921 elections. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He did not contest the 1922 general election and retired from politics.
