Dan Spring (22 July 1910 – 6 September 1988) was an Irish Labour Party politician who served as a

Teachta Dála A Teachta Dála ( ; ; plural ), abbreviated as TD (plural ''TDanna'' in Irish language, Irish, TDs in English), is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas, the parliament of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The official Engli ...

(TD) for the Kerry North constituency from 1943 to 1981. He was a Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government from 1956 to 1957. He was the father of

Dick Spring Richard Martin Spring (born 29 August 1950) is an Irish former Labour Party (Ireland), Labour Party politician who served as Tánaiste from 1982 to 1987, 1992 to November 1994, and December 1994 to 1997, Leader of the Labour Party (Ireland), L ...

, who led the Labour Party from 1982 to 1997.

Early life

Spring was born into a working-class family in

Tralee Tralee ( ; , ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the River Lee') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in ...

County Kerry County Kerry () is a Counties of Ireland, county on the southwest coast of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. It is bordered by two other countie ...

in 1910. He left school at the age of 14 and began his working life with a series of low-skilled jobs. When he was working at a mill, he became involved in the

Irish Transport and General Workers' Union The Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) was a trade union representing workers, initially mainly labourers, in Ireland. History The union was founded by James Larkin and James Fearon in January 1909 as a general union. Initially ...

(ITGWU) and after a while became a trade union official. He married Anna Laide (1919–1997) in 1944, and they had six children.

Sporting career

Spring was a

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

player, and was the captain of the

Kerins O'Rahilly's team with whom he won two

Kerry Senior Football Championship The Kerry Senior Football Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as Garvey’s SuperValu Senior Football Championship) is an annual Gaelic football competition organised by the Kerry County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association since 18 ...

titles in 1933 and 1939. He first played with Kerry when he won Munster and All-Ireland Junior titles in 1930. He later joined the senior team where he won All-Ireland titles in 1939 and captain of the side when they won the All-Ireland final in 1940.

Politics

He was elected to both Tralee Urban District Council (topping the poll) and

Kerry County Council Kerry County Council () is the Local government in the Republic of Ireland, local authority of County Kerry, Ireland. As a county council, it is governed by the Local Government Act 2001. The council is responsible for housing and community, roa ...

, representing the Labour Party in 1942. Through his involvement with the ITGWU he became well known enough to stand in Kerry North for the Labour Party at the 1943 general election. He was elected as the first Labour Party

(TD) for Kerry and held his seat until he retired in 1981. In 1944, Spring was among a group of six TDs who broke away from the Labour Party because it was allegedly infiltrated by

communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

and formed a new party they called the National Labour Party. The Labour Party and the National Labour Party reunited in 1950, having worked alongside each other in the

First inter-party government First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

since 1948. In 1956, during the term of the

Second inter-party government The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

Spring was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government, which he held until the government ended in 1957. For the rest of his political career Spring never held any significant post on a national level, and as a relatively conservative rural Labour man he fell out of step with the official line of the Labour Party, which moved significantly to the left during the 1960s and 1970s. During a vote on contraception, Spring famously said that on the day of the vote, his constituents would see how he stood on the issue. On the day of the vote, he appeared as a barrister in a court far away from the Dáil. Spring concentrated on his constituency work and was returned in every election he stood in until he retired in 1981, his son Dick then successfully contesting the seat.

References

Early life

Sporting career

Politics

See also

References