Richard Hayes (Irish politician)

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For other persons named Richard Hayes, see Richard Hayes (disambiguation).

Richard Hayes (died 1 January 1958) was an Irish politician and medical doctor. He was elected as a Sinn Féin MP for Limerick East in the 1918 general election. In January 1919, Sinn Féin MPs who had been elected in the Westminster elections of 1918 refused to attend the British House of Commons and instead assembled in the Mansion House, Dublin as a revolutionary parliament called Dáil Éireann.

During the War of Independence he was interned in the Curragh Camp. He was elected in the 1921 general election as a Sinn Féin TD for Limerick City-Limerick East and was released after the truce. He supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and voted in favour of it. He was re-elected in the 1922 general election as a Pro-Treaty Sinn Féin TD and subsequently as a Cumann na nGaedhael TD in the 1923 general election.

He resigned from the Dáil in 1924 and retired from politics. He subsequently became film censor and Director of the Abbey Theatre. He was the author of The Last French Invasion and other historical works.