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Patrick O'Keeffe (politician)
Patrick O'Keeffe (Irish: Pádraig Ó Caoimh; 3 July 1881 – 21 September 1973) was an Irish politician, revolutionary and public servant. O'Keeffe was born in the townland of Nohovaldaly, Cullen, County Cork, the son of Daniel John O'Keeffe and Bridget Sullivan.[1][2] He joined the Sinn Féin party led by Arthur Griffith, where he was at one time honorary secretary.[1] He fought in the Easter Rising in 1916 and was subsequently interned at Frongoch internment camp.[1] He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Cork North constituency at the 1918 general election.[3] As such, he was a member of the First Dáil, though he could not attend the first meeting as he was in prison.[4] He was elected unopposed as a Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork Mid, North, South, South East and West constituency at the 1921 elections. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted for it. He did not contest the 1922 general election.[5] He was deputy governor (and effectively in charge) of Mountjoy Prison during the Irish Civil War of 1922–1923, where he was popular with the prisoners, despite being on the opposing side.[1] In his vivid civil war memoir, The Gates Flew Open, Peadar O'Donnell devotes a chapter to how O'Keeffe was relentlessly mocked by the prisoners who called him 'Paudeen.'[6] He was assistant clerk of Seanad Éireann from 1938 until his retirement in 1947.[1]
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