{"id":100180,"date":"2025-10-03T01:09:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/100180\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T01:09:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T01:09:07","slug":"eirigi-said-ursula-ni-shionnain-still-member-in-2018-when-employed-by-catherine-connolly-in-leinster-house-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/100180\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed said Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain still member in 2018 when employed by Catherine Connolly in Leinster House \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain, who was jailed for firearms offences by the Special Criminal Court<\/a> in 2014, was still claimed as a member by the socialist republican group \u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed<\/a> in 2018, the year she was employed in Leinster House by presidential candidate<\/a> Catherine Connolly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On Thursday Ms Connolly said she \u201cchecked out\u201d Ms N\u00ed Shionnain after her release and employed her because she was \u201ca person who had rehabilitated herself\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Shionnain was convicted in February 2014 along with three others. She pleaded not guilty to the possession of arms and ammunition in Tullybeg, Rahan, Co Offaly, but did not offer a defence. She was found guilty and given a six-year sentence. Her co-accused were also jailed.<\/p>\n

The court heard that when a stolen van she and her co-accused were travelling in was stopped in 2012, close to the premises of a firearms dealer, one of the weapons discovered was a pistol used in a murder in Tallaght in 2002. <\/p>\n

It was not suggested that any of the accused were involved in the Tallaght murder. One of the accused had a previous conviction for IRA membership.<\/p>\n

During Ms N\u00ed Shionnain\u2019s time in prison, \u00c9ir\u00edg\u00ed posted several images of paintings of revolutionary figures by her on its Facebook page and referred to her as \u201ccomrade\u201d.<\/p>\n

On February 4th, 2018, it posted an image of revolutionary Constance Markievicz, saying it was a painting by \u201cour own Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain\u201d.<\/p>\n

In February 2023, Ms Ni Shionnain was one of a number of signatories of a \u201cStatement from Irish Republican Political ex-Prisoners\u201d posted on Facebook by two groups, AFA (Always Anti-Fascist) Ireland and a socialist republican group called Lasair Dhearg.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reactionary views of fascists have always been directly opposed to our beliefs, but now fascists pose as \u2018patriots\u2019 and \u2018community defenders\u2019,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n

Since December 2023, Ms N\u00ed Shionnain has been the language planning officer for the Meath Gaeltacht. She runs a language consultancy called Sainchomhairle and has appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Irish, the Gaeltacht and the Irish-Speaking Community. <\/p>\n

She has a PhD in modern Gaelic studies from University College Cork and worked on a draft language plan for the West Belfast Irish Language Network prior to taking up work in the Oireachtas, according to her LinkedIn profile.<\/p>\n

Last month Ms Connolly spoke at the launch of a new socialist republican magazine called An Clog\u00e1n, the other contributors to which include former TD and MEP Clare Daly, former Sinn F\u00e9in leader Gerry Adams and Social Democrats TD Cian O\u2019Callaghan. Ms N\u00ed Shionnain\u2019s contribution is entitled \u201cLanguage, Colonisation and Decolonisation\u201d. <\/p>\n

A request for a comment from Ms Ni Shionnain, whose Facebook page urges voters to vote for Ms Connolly, met with no response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ursula N\u00ed Shionnain, who was jailed for firearms offences by the Special Criminal Court in 2014, was still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1921,18,63601,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,59,55624,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-100180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-catherine-connolly","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-eirigi","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-presidential-election","24":"tag-special-criminal-court","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}