Emmet Stagg obituary: Labour Party stalwart was ‘a very determined standard-bearer for the left’

The Mayo-born politician served continuously in the Dáil from 1987 to 2016. Aged 75, he was the oldest candidate in the 2020 general election when he ran as the Labour Party candidate for Kildare North but he was not elected.When serving as minister of State for the Environment in 1993-1994, Stagg was a strong advocate of the direct building of social housing by local authorities and proud of his record of building homes and reducing housing lists during his time in office.

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik said Stagg was a great mentor to her when she first joined the Labour Party as a student in the late 1980s. “He was always very supportive of Labour Youth within the party. He was hugely popular in his community and consistently championed the needs of those facing inequality and disadvantage,” she said.

Stagg grew up on a small farm near the south Mayo village of Hollymount, one of 13 children of Mary and Henry Stagg. His father fought in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. Stagg attended the Christian Brothers School in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, which he strongly disliked. Following his secondary school education, he moved to Dublin to work as a trainee laboratory technologist at Trinity College Dublin.

In 1976 Stagg’s brother Frank , a member of the Provisional IRA, died on hunger strike in a West Yorkshire prison. Subsequently Emmet – as well as other prominent politicians at the time – was reportedly intimidated by members of the IRA due to his opposition to his brother’s reburial in the republican plot in Ballina, Co Mayo.

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