Diarmuid O'Flynn is a pensioner and was the founder of the Ballyhea Says No campaign, and in 2014 began working as one of MEP Luke Ming Flanagan's parliamentary assistants.
Among those to have shared this position are the literary editor Fintan O'Toole[4] and economists Constantin Gurdgiev and Stephen Kinsella.
[2] In June 2011, he and others from the Ballyhea Says No campaign embarked on a three-day walk/run/cycle relay from Ballyhea to Dublin to collect signatures for a petition to the government to seek debt write-off for Ireland, thereafter holding a short march in Dublin that culminated in hand-delivery of said petition to the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government.
[5] In August that year, he went on a seven-day "bread and water" diet in the attempt to publicise the campaign, losing "about a stone in weight".
[6] In 2014, O'Flynn ran as an Independent candidate in the South constituency at the 2014 European Parliament election, receiving the support of Irish business website Finfacts.