Billy Timmins (born 1 October 1959) is an Irish Fine Gael politician. He is currently a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Wicklow constituency.

Timmins was born in Baltinglass, County Wicklow. He was educated at Patrician College, Ballyfin, County Laois; and University College Galway where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Legal Science, and at the Military College, Curragh. Timmins served as an army officer, serving in Galway, Donegal and Kilkenny and with the United Nations in Lebanon and Cyprus.

He was elected to Wicklow County Council for the Baltinglass area in 1999 and served until 2004. Timmins was first elected to Dáil Éireann for the Wicklow constituency at the 1997 general election to succeed his father Godfrey Timmins who was retiring, and has held his seat ever since. Having just arrived in the Dáil he became party spokesperson on Defence, Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Relief. In 2000 he became party spokesperson on Housing.

Following the 2002 general election he was appointed spokesperson on Agriculture and Food. In Enda Kenny's Front Bench reshuffle in 2004 he received the Defence spokesperson portfolio. He was party spokesperson on Foreign Affairs from 2007–2010. In June 2010, he supported Richard Bruton's leadership challenge to Enda Kenny. Following Kenny's victory in a motion of confidence, Timmins was not re-appointed to the front bench. From October 2010 to March 2011, he was party Deputy spokesperson on Social Protection with special responsibility for Pension and Welfare Reform.

Timmins is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada on the Mattagami River. At the time of the Canada 2011 Census, Timmins' population was 43,165. At 2,961.52 square kilometres (1,143.45 sq mi), Timmins was Canada's largest municipality in land area until 1995, when the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo, Alberta, was created, although it remained the largest municipality in Ontario until 2001, when it was superseded by the newly amalgamated cities of Kawartha Lakes and Greater Sudbury. It is the 69th largest metropolitan area in Canada, although the statistical boundaries for Timmins' metropolitan area coincide with its municipal boundaries.

Archaeological and historical studies indicate that the first people to settle in the Timmins area were nomadic tribes such as Ojibwa and Cree dating back to 7000 BC. Timmins was a company town founded in 1912. However, South Porcupine and Schumacher were formed in 1911.

During the late 17th century, explorers and fur traders established outposts in the north to capitalize on the fur trade. The Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company later developed several trading posts along major routes in northern Ontario. The rivalry between these two trading companies resulted in the need to get their furs to market as soon as possible and this led to the development of the Porcupine Trail, a trading route that connected the Abitibi River to the Mattagami River and passed directly through present-day Timmins.

Terence Flanagan (born 1 January 1975) is an Irish Fine Gael politician. He has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North–East constituency since May 2007. He was elected at the 2007 general election. He was previously a member of Dublin City Council for the Artane area.

In February 2008, Flanagan made a speech which was notably similar to a previous one by Labour Party TD, Joan Burton. He initially denied that the speech was copied, and later issued a statement admitting, and apologising for, the plagiarism. He was Fine Gael Deputy spokesperson for the Environment with special responsibility for Housing from October 2007 to March 2011.

In June 2010, Flanagan said the Financial Regulator “must act tough” and “thoroughly examine” proposals by Irish Nationwide and Bank of Ireland to offer negative equity mortgages to an expected 350,000 homeowners.

Thomas Pringle (5 January 1789 – 5 December 1834) was a Scottish writer, poet and abolitionist, known as the father of South African Poetry, the first successful English language poet and author to describe South Africa's scenery, native peoples, and living conditions.

Born at Blaiklaw (now named Blakelaw), four miles south of Kelso in Roxburghshire he attended Kelso Grammar School and went on to study at Edinburgh University, where he developed a talent for writing. Injured in an accident in infancy, he did not follow his father into farming, but after attending Kelso grammar school and later Edinburgh University worked as a clerk and continued writing, soon succeeding to editorships of journals and newspapers. In 1816 one of his poems celebrating the countryside near Kelso came to the attention of the novelist Sir Walter Scott, who admired it. A friendship developed between the two and by Scott's influence, whilst facing hard times and unable to earn a living, Pringle secured free passage and a British Government resettlement offer of land in South Africa, to which he, with his father and brothers, emigrated in 1820. Being lame, he himself took to literary work in Cape Town rather than farming, opened a school with fellow Scotsman John Fairbairn, and conducted two newspapers, the South African Journal, and South African Commercial Advertiser. However, both papers became suppressed for their free criticisms of the Colonial Government, and his school closed.

Tony McLoughlin (born January 1949) is an Irish Fine Gael politician. He was elected as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Sligo–North Leitrim constituency at the 2011 general election. He was elected to Sligo County Council in 1974 and was subsequently elected to Sligo Borough Council in 1979, in place of his father Pat. He has served four separate terms as Mayor of Sligo.

McLoughlin is a nephew of Joseph McLoughlin, who was a Fine Gael TD for the Sligo–Leitrim constituency from 1961 to 1977.