Paul Galligan
Paul Galligan was an Irish Sinn Féin politician who would experience over five years in prison as a result of his republican activities during the 1916 Rising in Enniscorthy and the War of Independence in County Cavan.
Peter Paul Galligan was born in Carrigallen, County Leitrim and attended school at St Patrick's College, Cavan. A member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers, Galligan cycled from Dublin to Wexford during the Easter Rising. He was carrying James Connolly's battle orders to ensure that the volunteers in the area rose to support those in Dublin.
The Volunteers were ordered to destroy rail lines in order to prevent British reinforcements to Dublin from the south. Commandant Galligan and his men occupied Ferns, County Wexford and the surrounding areas. With 600 Volunteers in Enniscorthy under the command of Robert Brennan almost all of north Wexford was in rebel hands. When the volunteers disbanded he cycled back to County Cavan but was arrested at the family home. After his arrest Galligan was sentenced to death but that sentence was later reduced to five years penal servitude.
He was elected unopposed as the Sinn Féin MP for Cavan West at the 1918 general election. The following month, in January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled in the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann, though Galligan did not attend as he was in prison. He was arrested again in September 1920 and re-elected as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála for the Cavan constituency at the 1921 elections. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He did not contest the 1922 general election and retired from politics.