Paddy O'Hanlon

Paddy O'Hanlon
Personal details
Born	(1944-05-08)8 May 1944 Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland
Died	7 April 2009(2009-04-07) (aged 64) Dublin, Ireland

Patrick Michael O'Hanlon (8 May 1944 – 7 April 2009), known as Paddy O'Hanlon, was an Irish barrister and former nationalist politician in Ireland. His father, also Paddy, had been an active participant in the Irish War of Independence and lost a limb during the original Dungooley Ambush in 1922 during the Irish Civil War. The journalist Toby Harnden erroneously stated that the leg was buried in St Patrick's Cemetery, Dowdallshill in his book "Bandit Country." In fact were it not for the intervention of a nurse who was a member of Cumann na mBan he could have been summarily executed in 1922 in Dundalk. His mother, Sarah, had in fact signed nomination papers to enable Michael Collins contest the Northern Ireland House of Commons in the Armagh Constituency. The Northern Ireland Office denied their request for redress done to the farm and business in Mullaghbawn after the passage of the Anglo-Irish Treaty as the family were "bitter republicans."

Born in Drogheda County Louth, but resident in Mullaghbawn, South Armagh since childhood, partly due to an exclusion order, O'Hanlon studied at St Colman's College and at University College Dublin where he studied law. Prominent in the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, he was elected at the 1969 Northern Ireland general election, as an independent Nationalist MP for South Armagh. In August 1970, he was a founder member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). O'Hanlon was jailed several times during his activity for NICRA in advocating Civil Rights for Catholics and one-man-one-vote in Armagh Jail.

He has refused to deny in print that he travelled south with a number of Stormont Opposition MPs, Paddy Devlin and Paddy Kennedy to meet the Irish Government of Jack Lynch for military aid. This has been denied by fellow SDLP founder member, Paddy Devlin, who later quit the party in his autobiography Straight-Left though Devlin also travelled to Leinster House with O'Hanlon, Paddy Kennedy and others. However, Lynch refused to meet the delegation and as he has stated they got no guns but concentrated minds as refugees streamed south over the border into the Republic.

The Parliament of Northern Ireland was abolished in 1973 and O'Hanlon and the other SDLP members had withdrawn in protest before its prorogation. O'Hanlon was later elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly, representing Armagh and was the SDLP's Chief Whip.

O'Hanlon stood for the Westminster constituency of Armagh at the February 1974 general election, taking second place, with 29.3% of the votes cast. He stood for the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention and the 1982 Assembly in Armagh, but on both occasions was narrowly beaten by fellow party member Hugh News.

Following this second loss, O'Hanlon left active politics and qualified as a barrister; he remained connected with the SDLP but allowed his membership to lapse.

O'Hanlon died on 7 April 2009 in Dublin's Mater Hospital following a short illness; he was 65 years old. At the time of his death he was a member of the Fianna Fáil party a fact of which he was personally proud at the time of his death.

In his self-published autobiography, End of Term Report, he refers to the advice he provided to the SDLP during the forum talks leading to the Good Friday Agreement negotiations to Frank Feely and Seamus Mallon in the area of policing reform and policing bodies as he was considered a legal expert in this area as a constitutional barrister. Suggested amendments he provided to the texts submitted by the SDLP negotiators are provided in the autobiography, the majority of which were included in the actual text of the final document agreed in the negotiations and voted through by the people in two all-island referenda. Instrumental in assisting him was Dr Brian Feeney, then an SDLP member and journalist who also wrote a foreword to the book.

In 2001 he was appointed by then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, to chair the Task Force on Policy regarding Emigrants. The report published in 2002 was influential in improving the relationship between Ireland and the Irish abroad and made provision for returned emigrants to be given provision in the planning process and for designated housing in certain areas for returned emigrants from the UK.

He was a relative of the Cavan-Monaghan Fianna Fáil TD, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, who wrote a foreword to his autobiography, and the Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin.

O'Hanlon died on 7 April 2009 in Dublin's Mater Hospital following a short illness; he was 65 years old.