Michael Colivet

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Michael Colivet (Born: Limerick, 29 March 1882. Died: 4 May 1955) was an Irish Sinn Féin politician. He was Commander of the Irish Volunteers in Limerick during the 1916 Rising. He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for the Limerick City constituency in the 1918 general election. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs refused to recognise the Parliament of the United Kingdom and instead assembled at the Mansion House in Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann. At the official roll call, Colivet was marked "fé ghlas ag Gallaibh" (imprisoned by the foreign enemy). ^[1] Like many other elected Irish MP's he was interned in a British prison at the time.

He was re-elected unopposed in the 1921 elections for the Limerick City-Limerick East constituency. He opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted against it, stating in the Dail debate "I am now asked to throw out the Republican Government and accept the status of a Dominion within the British Empire. Many men can find it within themselves to reconcile such with their previous views and opinions whether they were expressed in oaths or in any other form whatsoever. That is their business. I am only concerned with mine, and my point of view is, I cannot do that thing. I have declared myself a Republican, and have been elected a Republican, and I will never willingly become a subject of the British Empire". He was again re-elected unopposed in the 1922 general election as a member of Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin but did not take his seat in the Dáil as he did not recognise the legitimacy of the Third Dail. He lost his seat in the 1923 general election.