- published: 28 Mar 2013
- views: 1360
Alex Maskey (born 8 January 1952) is an Irish politician who was the first member of Sinn Féin to serve as Belfast's Lord Mayor. He is Sinn Féin's longest sitting councillor and is currently an MLA for South Belfast as well as being a councillor for the Laganbank area of Belfast.
Maskey was educated at St. Malachy's College and at the Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education and then worked in Belfast docks as a labourer and barman. He was a successful amateur boxer, having only lost 4 out of 75 fights.
When the Troubles broke out in 1969 he became involved with the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and was interned twice in the 1970s.
Maskey stood unsuccessfully in West Belfast in the 1982 Assembly Election. In 1983, as part of the armalite and ballot box strategy, Maskey won a by-election for a seat on Belfast City Council from the Upper Falls area and became the first member of Sinn Féin to be elected to Belfast City Council since the beginning of The Troubles and only the second to be elected in Northern Ireland. Maskey emerged as a key ally of Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams' approach to the strategy. In 1987 he survived being shot at close range by loyalist paramilitaries.
Alex Maskey & Belfast City Hall [1988]
Alex Maskey explains Sinn Fein's abstentionist policy
Have Sinn Féin backed themselves into a corner over welfare reform promises? #NolanLIVE
An unusually insouciant Alex Maskey on the #ShinnersList 'deal'
The politics of funerals - Alex Maskey
Alex Maskey
Alex Maskey's speech
Arnaldo Otegi y Alex Maskey
Sinn Fein MLA Alex Maskey.mp4
Alex Maskey Supports Rioting by Short Strand Residents
ALEX MASKEY UTV LIVE TONIGHT 14 GENNAIO 2013
Panel 1 _ Alex Maskey
Alex Maskey 'the First among Equals'...mp4
Alex Maskey Sinn Féin MLA Ard Fheis Speech on Policing