Megan Fearon (born 29 July 1991) is an Irish former

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking ...

who was

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for the

Newry and Armagh Newry and Armagh can refer to: * Newry and Armagh (Assembly constituency) *Newry and Armagh (UK Parliament constituency) Newry and Armagh is a parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom House of Commons. The current MP is Mickey Brady o ...

constituency from June 2012 to January 2020.Sinn Fein to appoint Megan Fearon as Stormont's youngest MLA
BBC News, 26 June 2012 She was the party's spokesperson for women, children and young people, and was a government minister in the

Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the ...

Career

Fearon was selected by her party to succeed her party colleague Conor Murphy, an

abstentionist Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in ...

MP in the

parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

, who had resigned from the Assembly as part of Sinn Féin's policy of abolishing double jobbing. Coming from a well-known republican family in Drumintee in South Armagh, at the time of her selection, Fearon had just completed her last year at Queen's University Belfast, where she took a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Before her selection, Fearon had campaigned for Sinn Féin and had worked to raise mental health and drug awareness. She replaced party colleague

Chris Hazzard Chris Hazzard (born 20 August 1984) is an Irish politician from Sinn Féin who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for South Down since the 2017 United Kingdom general election, when he defeated incumbent Margaret Ritchie of the Social Dem ...

as the youngest MLA. Fearon was re-elected in the 2016 election. It was subsequently announced that she is among four Sinn Féin MLAs who will be joining the next Northern Ireland Executive as ministers. In December 2019, Fearon announced that she was stepping down as a Sinn Fein representative and that while she would remain a political activist, her time in elected politics was over

References

External links

NI Assembly website profile of Megan Fearon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fearon, Megan 1991 births Living people Politicians from County Armagh Sinn Féin MLAs Northern Ireland MLAs 2011–2016 Northern Ireland MLAs 2016–2017 Northern Ireland MLAs 2017–2022 Female members of the Northern Ireland Assembly Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Junior ministers of the Northern Ireland Assembly (since 1999)