Pat Rabbitte

Early life[edit]

Patrick Rabbitte was born near Claremorris in 1949, and was brought up in Woodstock, Ballindine, County Mayo. He was educated locally at St Colman's College, Claremorris before emigrating to Britain to find employment. He returned shortly afterward to attend University College Galway (UCG) where he studied Arts and Law. Whilst at university, Rabbitte became involved in several college movements before serving as President of the UCG Students' Union in 1970–1971. He achieved national attention while serving, between 1972 and 1974, as President of the national Union of Students in Ireland (USI). Following the completion of his presidency in 1974, he became an official in the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), becoming National Secretary for the union in 1980.


Rabbitte became involved in electoral politics for the first time in late 1982, when he unsuccessfully contested Dublin South-West for the Workers' Party (WP) at the November general election. He was elected to Dublin County Council in 1985. Having again failed in election at the 1987 general election, though with a greatly improved performance in the same constituency, he finally entered Dáil Éireann as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Dublin South-West at the 1989 election. He retained his seat at every subsequent election until his retirement in 2016—for the first two as a Democratic Left TD, and for subsequent ones representing the Labour Party.^[4]


After Tomás Mac Giolla's retirement as President of the WP in 1988, Rabbitte was seen as one of those who wanted to move the party away from its hard left position, and from its alignment with the Soviet Union and international communist and workers' parties. He and some others who had come from the USI via the trade union movement were seen as wanting to bring the WP toward the centre.^[5] This led Rabbitte, Eamon Gilmore and others to earn the nickname "The Student Princes". In 1992, Rabbitte played a prominent role with Proinsias De Rossa in an attempt to jettison some of the party's more hard-left positions. This eventually split the WP.^[6] Six of the seven TDs, including Rabbittee, joined Democratic Left.