Claire Kerrane
Claire Kerrane is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has been a Teachta Dála for the Roscommon–Galway constituency since the 2020 general election. She is the party's Spokesperson on Social Protection, Community and Rural Development and the Islands.
She is the first Sinn Féin national representative for the Roscommon constituency since the election of George Noble Plunkett and Gerald Boland in the 1923 Irish general election. She is also only the second ever woman elected as a TD for Roscommon, after Joan Burke of Fine Gael.
She is a member of the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle.Background
Kerrane, the daughter of Gerry and Angela Kerrane, from the village of Tibohine, County Roscommon, and was raised on a farm. She has said there was no history of republicanism in her family: her mother is English and her paternal grandfather was a "staunch Fine Gael activist". She joined Sinn Féin during a dispute over plans to build an anaerobic digestion plant in her area, when she became involved in an action group against the project.
Before becoming a TD, she worked as a parliamentary assistant to Independent TD Luke 'Ming' Flanagan and later as a political adviser on social protection for Sinn Féin in Leinster House. Flanagan would endorse her as a candidate in the 2020 election.
She is a graduate in English and Politics of NUI Galway and in 2016 qualified as a secondary school teacher.
