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John Bailey (Irish politician)

Irish Fine Gael politician

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ6220265 ↗
Source-derived summary

John Bailey (14 April 1945 – 9 July 2019) was an Irish Fine Gael politician who was a member of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council. He spent 10 years as chairman of the Dublin County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

Political career

Fake endorsement letter incident

On 23 May 2007, the eve of the General Election in the Republic of Ireland, Bailey circulated a letter purporting to be an official missive from the Fine Gael party, advising party supporters to vote No 1 for Bailey for vote management reasons. The letter was headed with a photo of the party leader, Enda Kenny. This action was subsequently criticised by his running mate, Eugene Regan, who called the letter 'entirely dishonest'. Fine Gael's local director of elections, Paddy Hayes, described the letter as a 'serious breach of party discipline and unity'.

Missing Golf club planning objection

In 2009, Bailey wrote to constituents in the vicinity of Dún Laoghaire Golf Club to inform them that he had submitted an objection to An Bord Pleanála concerning building development proposed for the Golf club grounds. The appeals body denied receiving an objection from Bailey. Bailey stated it must have gone missing in the post and that his bank was trying to trace the cheque for his submission fee. The Sunday Business Post and The Sunday Tribune both reported that Bailey and his daughter had received financial donations towards their election campaigns from the builders and the estate agents of the Golf Club development.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “John Bailey (Irish politician)” as irish Fine Gael politician. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 2019, 2007, 2009—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1945-04-14. The account is most persuasive where John, Bailey and Irish can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as irish Fine Gael politician. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6220265. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2019, 2007 and 2009.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “John Bailey (Irish politician)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow John Bailey (Irish politician) primary sources, John Bailey (Irish politician) archive and John research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “John Bailey (Irish politician)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “John Bailey (Irish politician)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.