Diarmuid O'Flynn is a pensioner and was the founder of the Ballyhea Says No campaign, and in 2014 began working as one of MEP Luke Ming Flanagan's parliamentary assistants. He was the ''

Irish Examiner The ''Irish Examiner'', formerly ''The Cork Examiner'' and then ''The Examiner'', is an Irish national daily newspaper which primarily circulates in the Munster region surrounding its base in Cork, though it is available throughout the country. ...

''s chief

hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of p ...

correspondent until his relocation to Brussels in 2014. As founder of the ''Ballyhea Says No'' protest movement, which from 2011 to 2020 held regular protest marches against repayments to holders of Irish government debt, O'Flynn has repeatedly called for debts to be written off for Ireland. Among those to have shared this position are the literary editor

Fintan O'Toole Fintan O'Toole (born 16 February 1958) is a polemicist, literary editor, journalist and drama critic for ''The Irish Times'', for which he has written since 1988. O'Toole was drama critic for the '' New York Daily News'' from 1997 to 2001 and ...

and economists Constantin Gurdgiev and Stephen Kinsella. In June 2011, he and others from the Ballyhea Says No campaign embarked on a three-day walk/run/cycle relay from Ballyhea to Dublin to collect signatures for a petition to the government to seek debt write-off for Ireland, thereafter holding a short march in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

that culminated in hand-delivery of said petition to the

Fine Gael Fine Gael (, ; English: "Family (or Tribe) of the Irish") is a liberal-conservative and Christian-democratic political party in Ireland. Fine Gael is currently the third-largest party in the Republic of Ireland in terms of members of Dáil � ...

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

coalition government. In August that year, he went on a seven-day "bread and water" diet in the attempt to publicise the campaign, losing "about a stone in weight". In 2014, O'Flynn ran as an Independent candidate in the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

constituency at the 2014 European Parliament election, receiving the support of Irish business website Finfacts. Having received 4.6% of the vote, which placed him 6th of all first preference votes, O'Flynn was finally eliminated on the 10th count. In November 2014, he was appointed parliamentary assistant to Midlands–North-West MEP Luke 'Ming' Flanagan.

References

External links

Official website
(archived 2020) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Oflynn, Diarmuid Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Gaelic games writers and broadcasters Irish Examiner people Irish sportswriters People from County Cork