Veteran Dublin Inner City activist and politician Christy Burke has been contesting national elections for the past forty years, but the closest the former IRA man and Concerned Parents Against Drugs activist came to being elected was in 2020 on his tenth attempt when he was beaten on the last count by 220 votes.

As a young man, Christy Burke was in the IRA and sided with the Provisionals in the 1970 split. He later spent some time in Portlaoise prison as a consequence.

His first electoral outing in Dublin Central for Sinn Féin  was in February 1982, when he took 1,458 (3%) of the vote and was eliminated on the 6th count after only gaining 47 votes in the intervening counts. It has to be said by way of mitigation that he was fishing out of the same pond as the late Tony Gregory (who won a seat for the first time at this election taking 4,703 votes) and Michael White of Sinn Féin the Workers’ Party (who took 1,672 votes). Nearly 60% of his transferred votes went to Gregory (36%) and White (23%)

Continue reading Christy Burke – If at first you don’t succeed…. →