John Joseph Clancy (23 January 1890 – 1 May 1932) was an Irish politician and Sinn Féin Teachta Dála (TD) of the First Dáil for Sligo North from 1918 to 1921.
[1] He was a native of Ballygrania, Collooney, County Sligo and a nephew of John Joseph Clancy, bishop of Elphin from 1895 to 1912.
[3] While in prison on 15 September 1918 he was selected as Sinn Féin candidate for North Sligo,[4] and in the 1918 general election, he was elected as part of the Sinn Féin landslide, defeating the Nationalist Thomas Scanlan who had sat for the Sligo North seat since 1909, by 9,030 to 4,242.
On the instructions of the Dáil, Sligo County Council refused to submit its accounts for audit to the British authorities, who then withdrew all grants and loans, causing a financial crisis and a large increase in the rates.
The IRA were led by Robert George Bradshaw, a man who had arrived in Sligo from Dublin in 1915, having just been released from Mountjoy prison with a caution, where he had been remanded for fraud.
[11] Farry[12] comments that 'Clancy's initial refusal of the IRA's demand for payment for collecting the rates was not forgiven by that body.