Eamon McCann

Eamonn McCann
Eamonn McCann (centre), on a march against austerity in Belfast, October 2012
Member of the Legislative Assembly for Foyle
In office 5 May 2016 – 26 January 2017
Preceded by	Gerard Diver
Succeeded by	Seat abolished
Personal details
Born	(1943-03-10) 10 March 1943 (age 74) Derry, Northern Ireland
Political party	People Before Profit Alliance
Children	3
Alma mater	Queen's University Belfast

Eamonn McCann (born 10 March 1943) is an Irish politician, journalist and political activist from Derry, Northern Ireland. In the 2016 Northern Ireland Assembly election, he was elected as an MLA for the Foyle constituency. He served for about 10 months before losing his seat in 2017.

McCann was born and has lived most of his life in Derry. Raised Catholic, he attended St. Columb's College and is prominently featured in the documentary film, The Boys of St. Columb's. He later attended Queen's University Belfast, where he was president of the Literary and Scientific Society, the university's debating society.

As a young man he was one of the original organisers of the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC), a radical campaign group focusing on access to social housing. DHAC organised, in conjunction with the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), the second civil rights march in Northern Ireland. This march, which took place on 5 October 1968, is generally seen as the birth date of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Movement. His political contemporaries included Bernadette Devlin, for whom he served as an election agent. He stood for election in the Foyle constituency at the 1969 Northern Ireland general election for the Northern Ireland Labour Party, placing third with 1,993 votes (12.3% of the total).