Seán French:SEÁN FRENCH, who died on Christmas Day at the age of 80, became a TD on his first attempt in the 1967 Cork byelection and held the seat for the next 15 years.
He was swept into power again in the 1969 and 1973 elections on the coat-tails of an irresistible tide of transfers from former taoiseach Jack Lynch, his political running mate, confidante, close friend and leader of Fianna Fáil.
French was a former lord mayor of Cork and could trace his political roots to the original Fianna Fáil gene pool. He served as a Cork TD over the course of three decades.
Besides being a Lynch devotee, he came from a strong political family on Cork’s north side and was thus assured of his Dáil seat. He failed, however, to win a Munster seat in elections for the European Parliament in 1979.
With a powerful local political machine behind him in Cork North Central, he served in six successive Dáil terms and was returned as a TD in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.
After regaining his seat in the general elections of 1969, 1973, he was re-elected again despite constituency revisions, winning elections in 1977, 1981 and February 1982.
Before the end of that year, however, he lost out in a turf war with Danny Wallace, his Fianna Fáil running mate, in the general election of November 1982. Wallace was younger and hungrier and took the seat in Cork North Central which French had held for 15 years. He did not stand again.
His father, also named Seán, was a member of the Cork Harbour Commissioners, a position of considerable power in a city of merchant princes. He had served as lord mayor of Cork from 1924 to 1929.
Having failed as an anti-Treaty candidate for Sinn Féin in the 1924 Dáil byelection for the Cork Borough Constituency, he joined the breakaway Fianna Fáil party after the 1926 split over the policy of abstentionism.
Taking a Dáil seat for the fledgling party the following summer, he represented Cork until 1932.
Following the well-worn path laid down by Jack Lynch, young Seán first made his mark as a sportsman, playing with Glen Rovers in the traditional heartland of Cork hurling, an iconic club where Lynch and Christy Ring had played before him.
Virtually a tribal power base in the old working-class suburb of Blackpool, it had deep associations with Fianna Fáil and was central to the party’s dominance north of the Lee.
Before going into politics, French had worked as a clerk in the National Flour Mills. Continuing his involvement with Glen Rovers he became its treasurer, a voluntary post that he also held with the Cork County Basketball Board.
French was also an aficionado of drag hunting – a minority sport where hounds follow the scent of aniseed left by a cloth trailed by a runner – and had a long association with Blackpool Harriers.
Paying tribute to the former TD, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin recalled that his own father had canvassed for him at election time.
“He was a respected, talented and committed person who worked for his local community, for Glen Rovers and for the people he represented.
“He served the people of Cork as a councillor, as lord mayor of the city and as a TD.
“Seán believed in public service and was proud to have been entrusted with those roles by the people.”
He is survived by his wife Pat, sons Seán and Bernard, daughters Rachael, Petronilla, Janice, Cynthia and Patsy and by his brother, Msgr Thomas French.
Seán French: born November 8th, 1931; died December 25th, 2011