Frank Sherwin: Independent and Unrepentant

This title is a celebration of the life of Frank Sherwin Senior, in his own words, from his witnessing of the Easter Rising through to the early 1970s. Frank Sherwin was born into a republican family in 1905. At an early age he joined the Fianna, a boy-scout movement, founded by the nineteen year old Belfast man Bulmer Hobson in 1902. This movement was active in the period especially in the Civil War. Sherwin was captured by Free State troops along with five others who were under his command and was tortured and imprisoned for twenty months in various prisons. This ill-treatment in prison left him physically disabled for the remainder of his life. After this turbulent period he joined the fledgling Fianna Fail party in 1926. His experience with the party machine left much to be desired, causing him to go it alone as an Independent for the remainder of his public life. He won a seat in the Municipal Elections of 1955 and a Dail seat in a by-election in 1957. It was in the latter position that he became widely known, owing to his support of the Fianna Fail government of the 1960s. It was in the introduction of the unpopular Turnover Tax that the opposition saw their chance of unseating this government. It would involve toppling Sherwin, the lone pillar and the government’s prop. He was to brave slander and bribery but remained obstinate, convinced that his supporting of Sean Lemass’s government was in the interests of the Irish people, for the good of the nation and the stability of the country.