Republican News · Thursday 25 April 2002

Mairead Keane to contest Wicklow

Sinn Féin has chosen Mairead Keane to contest the Wicklow constituency for the party. A party member since 1984, Keane has held many leadership positions. She has been the national director of the party's Women's Department and director of the party's Education Committee. Mairead was convenor of the Sinn Féin Peace Commission, set up as a response to the Downing Street Declaration, to garner the opinions of the widest possibe spectrum of Irish opinion on how best a lasting peace could be achieved. Mairead was also Sinn Féin's first representative to the United States.

"I have been getting a great welcome across the constituency," Keane told An Phoblacht. In the past week I have visited Carnew, where 35 rebels were executed in 1798, I spoke to a large audience of republicans at a function in Wicklow town.

"Marie Gavaghan and Eamon Long have done sterling work for Sinn Féin and for the people of Wicklow."

On Tuesday, 23 April, Keane addressed hundreds of women's groups at an event organised by the Council for Status of Women. She was in Dublin again the next day with Sinn Féin's other women candidates and party president Gerry Adams to launch the party's Women's Policy Document for the forthcoming elelction. Mairead is the party's spokesperson on Women's Health.