James Hickey (Irish politician)

James Hickey (c. 1886 – 7 June 1966) was an Irish Labour Party politician who joined the short-lived breakaway National Labour Party. He served four terms as Lord Mayor of Cork.

James Hickey
Hickey in 1937
Teachta Dála
In office June 1938 – June 1943
Constituency	Cork Borough
In office February 1948 – May 1951
Constituency	Cork Borough
Senator
In office 1954–1957
Constituency	Nominated by the Taoiseach
Lord Mayor of Cork
In office 1937–1939
In office 1943–1944
Personal details
Born	1886 Ballinagar, Mallow, County Cork
Died	1966 (aged 79–80)
Political party	Labour Party
Other political affiliations	National Labour Party (1944 - 1950)

Hickey was one of twelve children in his family and was a native of Ballinagar, Mallow, County Cork. He moved to Cork at the age of 27 and found employment first with the Cork Steam Packet Company and later with John Daly and Company, then-manufacturers of Tanora. He joined the Labour Party about this time and became a trade union official. In 1931 he married Eileen Kiernan, with whom he had four children.[1]

Hickey first stood for the Dáil at the 1937 general election for the Cork Borough constituency, but narrowly missed being elected. He was more successful at the 1938 general election,[2] unseating Richard Anthony, a former Labour TD who left the Party in the 1920s and sat as an independent.

Hickey made international headlines in February 1939, when, as Lord Mayor of Cork, he refused to give a civic reception to the captain and crew of the German warship SMS Schlesien which was on a 'courtesy visit' to Cork Harbour flying the Nazi flag (in spite of Irish neutrality). The Schlesien was a 13,000 tonne World War I battleship. Hickey's reasoning for the refusal to entertain the German crew was stated to be a slight by the German media on the occasion of the death of Pope Pius XI some time earlier. Hickey said, "the insult given to the Catholic world on the death of the Pope, when the responsible German Press termed our Holy Father a political adventurer”.[3][4]

Hickey lost his seat in the 1943 Irish general election.

Hickey was one of the six prominent members who left Labour in 1944 to form the National Labour Party, and it was as a National Labour Party candidate that he was defeated at the 1944 general elections. He was re-elected at the 1948 election as a National Labour candidate, and after the split in Labour was healed, he was returned to the Dáil for a final time at the 1951 general election.[5] In 1952, he published a book called Some Aspects of the Housing Problem.[6]

After his defeat at the 1954 general election he stood unsuccessfully for election to Seanad Éireann, but was nominated to the 8th Seanad by the Taoiseach John A. Costello.