Máire Devine (born 22 October 1972)[1][2] is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin South-Central since November 2024. She previously served as a Senator for the Labour Panel from June 2016 to June 2020.[3][4]
Devine was born in The Liberties to a family of republicans involved in campaigns around the 1981 Irish hunger strike. She is married to Kevin Devine; they have three children.[5] She worked as a psychiatric nurse[6][7] while a councillor and was a long-term trade union activist.[8]
Devine was co-opted onto South Dublin County Council in 2011, representing Tallaght Central. She was re-elected in 2014.[9]
She stood unsuccessfully in Dublin South-Central at the 2016 general election, but was later elected to the 25th Seanad on the Labour Panel.[10]
In 2018, she was suspended from Sinn Féin for three months after retweeting a parody Twitter account that referred to Irish Prison Service officer Brian Stack (fatally shot by the Provisional IRA in 1983) as a "sadist."[11] She lost her seat at the 2020 Seanad election.[12]
In October 2020 she was co-opted to Dublin City Council representing the South West Inner City to replace Críona Ní Dhálaigh who resigned from her seat the previous month.[13][14]
She was returned to the council in the 2024 local elections. Later in the same year, she was added to Sinn Féin's ticket in Dublin South-Central alongside Aengus Ó Snodaigh and Daithí Doolan.[15]
At the 2024 general election, Devine was elected to the Dáil on the 15th and final count.[16][17]
It was proposed by Councillor Daithí Doolan and seconded by Councillor Janice Boylan "That Ms. Máire Devine be co-opted to replace former Councillor Críona Ní Dhálaigh who had resigned from Dublin City Council." The motion was put and carried.