Eamon Kissane

Template:Short description Template:Use Hiberno-English Template:Use dmy dates Eamon Kissane (13 January 1899 – 20 May 1979) was an Irish Fianna Fáil politician who served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence from 1943 to 1948, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands from February 1943 to July 1943. He served as a Senator from 1951 to 1965 and a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1932 to 1951.

A member of a prosperous farming family in Newtownsandes (now Moyvane) in north County Kerry, he joined the Irish Volunteers and was elected to Kerry County Council at the age of 21. He fought in the Irish War of Independence and on the Anti-Treaty side in the Irish Civil War. He was imprisoned by Irish Free State authorities from 1922 to 1923.

Deeply interested in Irish culture, Kissane was a member of Conradh na Gaeilge and worked as a teacher of the Irish language until his election to the Dáil.

Parliamentary career

Kissane was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Kerry constituency at the 1932 general election which began sixteen years of unbroken rule for Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil. In the last months of the 10th Dáil, Kissane got his first promotion, as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Lands, from February to June 1943. After Fianna Fáil's victory at the 1944 general election, Kissane was appointed as Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Government Chief Whip) and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence. He served in that position until when Fianna Fáil was defeated at the 1948 general election, when the First Inter-Party Government took office.

Fianna Fáil won the 1951 general election, but Kissane lost his Dáil seat in Kerry North. By now living in New Ross, County Wexford, Kissane was unexpectedly defeated by John Lynch of Fine Gael. He stood again in Kerry North at the 1954 general election, but was not successful.

After his defeat in 1951, Kissane was nominated by the Taoiseach to the 7th Seanad, and in 1954, he was elected by the Cultural and Educational Panel to the 8th Seanad. The panel returned him to the next two Seanads, but he did not contest the 1965 election to the 11th Seanad, and retired from politics.

In September 1935 he married Anne Kehoe at the church of St Andrew, Westland Row. He took a law degree late in life, and was called to the bar in 1938.

Kissane was a talented fiddle and flute player and was a founder of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann.