Pearse Doherty

Pearse Daniel Doherty was born in Glasgow on 6 July 1977, the son of Irish parents. When he was three years old, the family returned home to the Irish-speaking town of Gweedore, where he grew up and became fluent in Irish.^[2] He enrolled in a civil engineering degree course at Dublin Institute of Technology in 1996, but dropped out after 2 years to take on a job in the industry.^[3] In 1999, Doherty, Matt Carthy and two other Sinn Féin activists were arrested in Dublin. At a court hearing it was alleged that Doherty had abused a Garda, though it was argued Doherty's comment was the consequence of a "simple misunderstanding" and was not at anyway intended to offend the Garda. He was convicted, but was given the benefit of the Probation Act in lieu of a criminal record.^[4][5]

He completed two years of his civil engineering course, earning a national certificate that entitled him to work as a civil engineering technician. He then left third-level education to pursue a job in that field.^[3][6] He later resumed his studies by enrolling in another civil engineering course at Letterkenny Institute of Technology, but dropped out in order to run for Dáil Éireann in the 2002 general election.^[3]

A member of Sinn Féin since 1996,^[7] Doherty was a founding member of Ógra Shinn Féin and served on its national executive between 1998 and 2001.^[8]

In the 2002 general election, Doherty ran unsuccessfully in the Donegal South-West constituency.^[9] On 11 June 2004, he ran simultaneously at the local elections for Donegal County Council and at the 2004 European Parliament elections. He failed to win a seat in the European Parliament, but was elected to Donegal County Council for the Glenties local electoral area.^[9][10]

Doherty's second attempt to win a Dáil seat, at the 2007 general election, also proved unsuccessful; he received 21.2% of the first-preference vote.^[9] However, he was elected to Seanad Éireann as a Senator for the Agricultural Panel on 24 July 2007.^[10]

On 12 July 2010, the High Court granted Doherty a judicial review into why the government had not held a by-election to fill the Dáil seat vacated by Fianna Fáil's Pat "the Cope" Gallagher when he won election to the European Parliament in June 2009.^[11] On 2 November 2010, the High Court ruled that the government had delayed unreasonably in holding the by-election. In response to the ruling, the government announced that the Donegal South-West by-election would be held on 25 November 2010. Doherty stood as the Sinn Féin candidate and won the by-election by a substantial margin, earning 39.8 percent of the first-preference vote.^[12] On taking his seat in the Dáil, Doherty was appointed Sinn Féin's spokesperson on Finance.^[13] However, the Dáil was dissolved on 1 February 2011, at which point Doherty had been a TD for just over nine weeks.^[14]

Shortly before the 2011 general election, several newspapers alleged that Doherty had misled the public by stating on various Sinn Féin and Oireachtas webpages that he had formerly worked as a "civil engineer", an occupation that presumes a degree-level qualification. Doherty insisted that he had "always been upfront" about the fact that he had not completed his degree, clarified his educational credentials, and acknowledged that he had qualified as a civil engineering technician and not a civil engineer.^[3][15]

In that election Doherty topped the poll decisively in Donegal South-West, attaining 14,262 first-preference votes (32.97%) .^[9][16]

Doherty represented Sinn Féin in the Oireachtas delegation that met the Bundestag's Budgetary and European Affairs committees in Berlin in late January 2012.^[17]

It was revealed in June 2012, that Doherty put €8,000 worth of unspent travel and accommodation expenses towards hiring part-time party workers, despite these expenses being supposed to be returned to the Oireachtas under rules introduced in 2010.^[18] A report found that he had not breached any expense rules, and cleared him of any wrongdoing.^[19]

At the 2016 general election, after a redrawing of constituency boundaries, Doherty was elected to the new five-seater Donegal constituency on the 8th count with 10,300 votes.^[9][20]

He topped the poll at the 2020 general election with 21,044 first-preference votes (27.17%),^[21] and was appointed leader of Sinn Féin's negotiations team.^[22]

On 16 June 2022, Doherty clashed with Tánaiste Leo Varadkar in the Dáil. Doherty attacked Varadkar for being "out of touch" and brought up Varadkar's legal issues with the DPP. Varadkar responded by calling it a "cheap shot" and brought up a 1999 in which Doherty was convicted of abusing a Garda, saying "You abused, mistreated a Garda Síochána. For that you were prosecuted. You were found guilty. Yes, you got away without a conviction because of your age at the time, but you were actually prosecuted. You were arrested. That's what happened to you."^[4][23]

Doherty continues to reside in Gweedore. He is married to Róisín, a school teacher from County Monaghan. They have four sons.^[24][25]

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pearse Doherty.

• Pearse Doherty's page on the Sinn Féin website
• Pearse Doherty donegalsf.com
• Dáil General Election Profile : Pearse Doherty, Donegal South–West