Sean Cronin (29 August 1922 – 9 March 2011) was an Irish Republican Army leader who twice served as chief of staff.
Biography[]
Sean Cronin was born in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland on 29 August 1922, but he was raised in Ballinskelligs, County Kerry. Cronin moved to the United States and became a journalist and Irish nationalist while there, joining the Irish Republican Army on his return to Ireland in 1955. From 1956 to 1962, he was involved in planning IRA operations against the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland, and he was arrested several times for leading a guerrilla campaign against the British Army. From 1957 to 1958 and from 1959 to 1960, Cronin served as Chief-of-Staff of the IRA, and he edited the United Irishman, the official newspaper of the socialist Sinn Fein party. In 1962, he left the IRA after leaving prison, and he became the first Washington DC correspondent for The Irish Times. He died in Washington DC in 2011.