Dessie Ellis
Desmond Ellis (born 23 September 1953) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency since the 2011 general election. During the 1970s and 1980s Ellis was a member of the Provisional IRA until his arrest in Ireland in 1981. Ellis subsequently fled Ireland before being recaptured in the United States and returned to Irish authorities. In 1983 Ellis was found guilty of possessing materials used to make explosive devices for the IRA and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment by an Irish court. In 1990 Ellis was the first person extradited from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom under the 1987 Extradition Act, on charges of terrorism on charges related to the 1982 Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings as well as the 1983 Harrods bombing, however Ellis was acquitted of these charges in 1991. Ellis moved into constitutional politics in 1999 when he was elected to Dublin City Council, a position he held until he was elected to his current position as a Teachta Dála. Early life Ellis was born in Finglas in 1953. He is from an Irish republican family, and both of his grandfathers fought in the Easter Rising in 1916. He later owned a television repair business. Extradition and prison term He is a former Provisional IRA prisoner. He was arrested in 1981, when explosives and bomb making equipment were found under his bed. He was charged with possession of explosives. He jumped bail, but was arrested in Buffalo, New York in February 1982 and extradited to the Republic of Ireland, where in April 1983, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in Portlaoise Prison. He was convicted of possessing multiple power-timer units for IRA bombs, including those suspected of being used in the Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings. In 1983, Ellis' fingerprints were found on a huge cache of IRA explosives found in a forest outside the Berkshire town of Pangbourne. The cache was linked to the Harrods and Hyde Park bombings. On 14 November 1990, after thirty-five days on hunger-strike, Ellis became the first person extradited from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom under the 1987 Extradition Act. He went on hunger strike to protest efforts to send him to Britain, but was extradited in the sixth week of his fast. Ellis's hunger strike drew considerable domestic and international attention, and at one point Taoiseach Charles Haughey intervened, asking Ellis' parents to ask him to give it up, but they refused. Ellis was acquitted at his trial in London in October 1991. Political career Ellis was first elected to Dublin City Council in 1999, for the Finglas local electoral area. He unsuccessfully contested the 2002 general election in the Dublin North-West constituency, and received 4,781 first preference votes (18.3%). He was again unsuccessful at the 2007 general election in the same constituency, receiving 4,873 votes (15.7%). At the 2011 general election, he was elected to the 31st Dáil with